The Spiral Staircase
Oct. 20th, 2024 02:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphilo I seem to be in the mood for this sort of thing at the moment.
It's a silly story. A girl who has lost the power of speech because of trauma is banged up in a gothic mansion with several men knocking around- one of whom may be an atrocious murderer. The acting is mostly as wooden as the script encourages them to be, though Ethel Barrymore got a best supporting Oscar for playing a cranky old woman, Dorothy McGuire (must have been great to have a starring role with no lines to learn!) is charming enough and Elsa Lanchester has a nice little cameo as a housekeeper with a taste for brandy. I'm always very happy to see Elsa!
The thing is it works. Suspense? Check. Detective interest? Check. A thrilling climax? Check. Noir visuals? Check- and at it's furthest stretch there's a distinct flavour of German expressionism. Robert Siodmak directs.
Siodmak had a a long, eventful and interesting international career. He started in silents, made films in Germany, France, Britain and, of course, the USA and his last film (a Swords and Sandals epic which is reportedly nor very good) came out in 1969. He was a gun for hire not an auteur, but some of his movies are "classics", including, I'd be prepared to argue, this.....
It's a silly story. A girl who has lost the power of speech because of trauma is banged up in a gothic mansion with several men knocking around- one of whom may be an atrocious murderer. The acting is mostly as wooden as the script encourages them to be, though Ethel Barrymore got a best supporting Oscar for playing a cranky old woman, Dorothy McGuire (must have been great to have a starring role with no lines to learn!) is charming enough and Elsa Lanchester has a nice little cameo as a housekeeper with a taste for brandy. I'm always very happy to see Elsa!
The thing is it works. Suspense? Check. Detective interest? Check. A thrilling climax? Check. Noir visuals? Check- and at it's furthest stretch there's a distinct flavour of German expressionism. Robert Siodmak directs.
Siodmak had a a long, eventful and interesting international career. He started in silents, made films in Germany, France, Britain and, of course, the USA and his last film (a Swords and Sandals epic which is reportedly nor very good) came out in 1969. He was a gun for hire not an auteur, but some of his movies are "classics", including, I'd be prepared to argue, this.....
