Review of Old Dark House, The

Introduction

After the success of Paul Leni`s 1927 silent classic `The Cat and the Canary`, James Whale directed another `Haunted House` film, this time based on J. B. Priestley`s novel `Benighted`. Adapted for the screen by Priestley himself, together with Benn W. Levy and an uncredited R. C. Sherriff with whom Whale had worked on 1930`s `Journey`s End`, `The Old Dark House` built on the success of Whale`s `Frankenstein` and became the first `Haunted House` `talkie`.

The film takes place over a single night in Wales where the Femm family play host to five visitors seeking shelter from a storm. The first visitors are Philip and Margaret Waverton (Raymond Massey and Gloria Stuart) and Roger Pendrel (Melvyn Douglas). They are greeted by Morgan the heavily scarred and mute butler (Boris Karloff), Horace Femm (Ernest Thesiger) and his religious obsessive sister Rebecca (Eva Moore) who almost make the lost travellers regret seeking refuge with their bizarre behaviour which verges on the insane. Shortly after, Sir William Porterhouse and his girlfriend Gladys DuCane (Charles Laughton and Lilian Bond) bang on the door also requiring shelter from the inclement weather. As the night wears on, two more members of the Femm family are introduced, each one more mentally unbalanced than the last: the 102 year old patriarch Sir Roderick (played by Elspeth Dudgeon who is credited as `John`) and finally the imprisoned pyromaniac Saul (Brember Wills).

Video

The 1.37:1 transfer shows all the signs of neglect with significant amounts of grain and scratches, yet is good enough to showcase Whale`s excellent camerawork and use of shadow.

Audio

The mono soundtrack is what you would expect from a film made in 1932 and is very clear - this is helped by the almost theatrical nature of the film in which every actor (Karloff aside) enunciates clearly.

Features

The commentary by Kim Newman and Stephen Jones is lively and informative with plenty of information about the film and others within the genre and there is probably less than a minute of `dead air` in the whole running time!

The `Tonight` show interview with Sir Ian McKellen about `Gods and Monsters` is marginally interesting and fairly revealing as the presenter isn`t a film buff and the questions are non-threatening (none about his sexuality!). The distributors obviously don`t have the rights to `Gods and Monsters`, so when they show a clip one is shown a title card instead.

Conclusion

Due to the wrangling over the rights of `The Old Dark House`, Universal don`t have the rights to show it and I imagine it is for this reason that it was not included in the brilliant `Legacy Collection` releases. This is a real shame as `The Old Dark House` is one of the great horror movies of the 1930s and a special edition release with a re-mastered transfer would have been more than welcome. Anyway, if you liked any of the `Legacy Collection` films, or are interested in where the `Haunted House` genre began, then this is a DVD definitely worth watching.