Film historians might want to debate us on this, but we're reasonably confident calling this Hollywood's first full fledged try at a scare-your-socks-off, old fashioned haunted house ghost story.......
And it's a gem.......a beautifully put together (as only 1940's Hollywood could do) example of what we call a Snow Globe movie.......existing in its own, carefully constructed little universe.......complete with its own romantic yearning melody for accompaniment. (Victor Young's "Stella By Starlight".....more on that later)
Like most forbidding haunted abodes of classic Hollywood, this film's "Windward" house is primarily rendered with matte paintings, accentuating further the film's aura of a dream-like, dark fairy tale.....
And the ghosts here (two women, good and evil) effectively do their job of freezing your blood as they manifest themselves. The benevolent ghost, beset by tragedy and heartbreak, forlornly weeps throughout the house.
The evil ghost, a vengeful wraith bent on driving a young girl to suicide, appears on camera exactly as you'd imagine in your worst nightmare.......first as a swirling, indefinable mist, then slowly assuming its malevolent, semi-human form without ever fully coming into focus.
Personally, every time this bone-chilling apparition appears, we can barely contain our urge to run around the room, turning on all the lights.......
And we'll now take a sad moment of reflection for MVP of this film, Gail Russell, playing the sweetly ethereal, tormented young girl who's both bedeviled and embraced by the two dueling ghosts......
Russell, a shy, nervous high school girl who found herself hurled into Hollywood stardom machinery, spent her short tragic life as a deer-in-the-headlights waiting to get run over. With this film, the melodramatic demands of her role far exceeded her limited acting skills.......so she calmed herself with alcohol and continued to do so until it eventually killed her at age 36.
As for her work in the film, her poignant innocence and beauty carried her through it wonderfully, making the film even more haunting than it already was.....our fond remembrance of Gail Russell always comes back to "The Uninvited".
Not to forget all the other folks who made this a classic........smoothly wisecracking Ray Milland (who gets the film's best line at the end,) Donald Crisp, crisply huffy as Russell's imperious grandfather......and for extra creepiness, Cornelia Otis Skinner, as the sinister Medusa-In-Chief of a mental asylum, harboring the plot's darkest secrets.
So this month, cook up the popcorn, turn off the lights, clutch a friend or lover tightly and invite yourself into "The Uninvited".....5 ghostly stars (*****), another FIND OF FINDS.
Bonus Fun Trivia, as promised: The lovely "Stella By Starlight" played throughout the film turns up again as main title music 19 years later.......as the jazzy, big band orchestrated theme for Jerry Lewis's "The Nutty Professor".....
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