The Old Dark House

The house of horror ( The Old Dark House ) is a horror film with Boris Karloff of 1932. The film is based on the 1927 novel, From the night surprised ( Benighted ) by John Boynton Priestley.

Action

Margaret Waverton, Philip Waverton and Roger Penderel are with the car on the way to Shrewsbury, as they are surprised by a storm in the mountains of Wales. When the road is washed away, they seek refuge in the house of FEMMS. The residents of the house, the silent butler Morgan ( Boris Karloff ), the atheist Horace Femm and its religious- fanatical and hateful sister Rebecca Femm, travelers are not safe, but given their situation they have no alternative but to stay. Especially the hostess Rebecca are the uninvited guests an eyesore. Two other refuge seekers, the vulgar millionaire Sir William Porterhouse and the stage dancer Gladys DuCane, bring further unrest in Rebecca's house. The situation escalates when the butler Morgan Riots drunk and pursued Margaret. Fleeing from Morgan Margaret and Philip will find the 102 -year-old Sir Roderick Femm. This tells them the madness of his children Rebecca and Horace, the tragic "accident" his daughter Rachel and his oldest son Saul. Worried hear the Wavertons that the Insane and pyromaniac Saul is locked in the attic and has the desire to burn the house along with its inhabitants. Meanwhile, Morgan can freely Saul, who promptly tried to burn the house. But - unlike in the original novel - all travelers survive the night.

Reception

Bizarre and eerie dialogue - " No bed! No bed for them! " " You filled this house with laughter and sin, laughter and sin with. " " All around me are crazy, but I 'm normal. " " Beautiful fabric, it will rot. Even her beautiful skin, and the rotted over time, "etc. - are characteristic of the house of horror and lift the film from other horror films of the 1930s. While the film in England found a wide audience because of its ironic, black humor, remained Whales film in the U.S. initially unsuccessful. For many years, the film remained lost until the original film roles were rediscovered in 1970. However, the film was not broadcast on television until 1994, there were copyright issues with William Castle remake of 1963 as a comedy.

Comments

  • According to the Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural, the role of the 102 -year-old Sir Roderick Femm by Elspeth Dudgeon was played as Whale no male actors knew who looked old enough to play the role believable.
  • Gloria Stuart, who plays Margaret Waverton, is that 1932er of the cast, who died last. She was 100 years old and played the elderly Rose in James Cameron's Titanic (1997).

Reviews

  • " Masterfully staged. " - The Motion Picture Guide
  • "(...) Melodramatic horror grotesque, which keeps the audience between smile and laugh, a classic of the genre (...). " ( Rating: 3 stars = very good) - Adolf Meier Heinzl and Berndt Schulz in Lexicon " Movies on TV " ( Extended edition ). Rasch and Röhring, Hamburg 1990, ISBN 3-89136-392-3, p 622
  • " A rarity of the horror film - eerily beautiful and full of black irony ( ... ) Transmitted light and shadow, shock effects and sarcastic - threatening dialogues Whale creates it, so to saturate until dawn with psycho -terror, the hours that the most terrible is to be expected (...) cult classic. " - Dirk Manthey (ed. ), Jörg Altendorf (ed.), Willi Baer (ed.): Movies 89 The highlights of the television year. Cinema Verlag, Hamburg 1988, ISBN 3-89324-037-3, page 49
1932 in film James Whale Screenplay R. C. Sherriff Carl Laemmle, Jr. Arthur Edeson Waterloo Bridge (1931 film) Frankenstein (1931 film) The Invisible Man (film) Show Boat (1936 film) The Man in the Iron Mask (1939 film)
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