Gladys says her relationship with William is platonic, and suggests she should live with Roger instead. They go back to the house, where they wake up William and tell him about their new romance. Meanwhile, Philip and Margaret go into the room where he heard the voice; they find Roderick Femm there. He warns them about his eldest son, Saul, a crazed pyromaniac kept in the locked room. Philip and Margaret discover that Morgan has let Saul out; they go downstairs to warn the other guests. Philip and William drag Morgan into the kitchen while Rebecca flees to her bedroom.
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The actor playing the aging family head – listed as John Dudgeon – was actually a woman Elspeth Dudgeon. MovieMeter aims to be the largest, most complete movie archive with reviews and rankings, in the World. Our team of journalists delivers the latest news for movies and TV shows. Here you will find an overview of the cast of the movie The Old Dark House from the year 1932, including all the actors, actresses and the director. When you click on the name of an actor, actress or director from the movie The Old Dark House-cast you can watch more movies and/or series by him or her. There was a period in which this was believed to be a lost film.
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The Old Dark House Blu-ray review: James Whale's Gothic horror restored - SciFiNow
The Old Dark House Blu-ray review: James Whale's Gothic horror restored.
Posted: Tue, 22 May 2018 07:00:00 GMT [source]
It's believed that all current prints were derived from a surviving 16mm print. There is one nifty jolt shot where Gloria Stuart stands in front of the dinnertable making animal figures in silhouette on the wall and then another figure suddenly appears seemingly from within her shadow. Whale creates great suspense out of the scenes with Boris Karloff pursuing Gloria Stuart and Raymond Massey trying to fight him off. It all culminates in a wonderful climax where Raymond Massey must face down the diminutive and dementedly nutty Bember Wills over the dinnertable and wrestles with him on the stair landing as he sets the house alight. A deft blend of well-chosen ingredients, The Old Dark House is a delightfully scary horror comedy that benefits from James Whale's suspenseful direction. Saul's attempt at burning the house has caused little damage.
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He frees Margaret and Gladys from the closet before taking Saul's body upstairs. Many of the films in the Old Dark House genre had wonderfully stylised lighting scheme and directorial flourishes – fine examples being the 1927 The Cat and the Canary and The Bat Whispers – but ultimately they were films of occasional affect. On the other hand, in The Old Dark House James Whale creates a Gothic mood that permeates the entire film. The film is set contemporary and the tone is certainly a good deal more realist than the distorted European netherworld that Frankenstein took place in, nevertheless James Whale causes the film to slip into a stylised Gothic mood despite.
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On a stormy night in Wales, five people, Philip and Margaret Waverton, their friend Penderel, Sir William Porterhouse and his lady friend, chorus girl Gladys Perkins, whose stage name is DuCane, seek refuge in a gloomy house off the road. The denizens of the house include Horace Femm, an hysteric, his sister Rebecca, a religious fanatic, and Morgan, their scarred, brutish butler, who is a mute. At dinner, Horace confides that sometime in the past, their sister Rachel died in a mysterious fashion.
Whale and his cast create some wonderfully crafted characterisations. Ernest Thesiger has a weirdly birdy presence and Eva Moore plays the gimlet-eyed old shrew issuing doom-laden warnings with great effect. Boris Karloff adds sinister presence by stumbling about in bearded, scarred face and saying nothing at all. The visitors are an uninteresting bunch in comparison, excepting for Charles Laughton who offers a marvellously crass and boisterous presence that succeeds in stealing the film.
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As the group chats by the fireplace, Gladys reveals her real last name is Perkins. Roger and Gladys go to retrieve some whiskey from his car. The electric lights go out and Rebecca tells Horace to get a lamp from an upstairs landing.
They settle in for the night and are joined not long after by two other travellers, the wealthy industrialist Sir William Porterhouse and his girlfriend, dancehall girl Gladys Duquesne, whom Penderel takes an instant liking to. However, as the storm causes the power to go off and the brutish Morgan becomes menacingly drunk, they realise that the house holds secrets, including one family member, the mad pyrokinetic son Saul, who is kept locked in the attic. It was placed at number 71 on a Time Out poll of the best horror films. In 1957, Universal Studios lost the rights to the original story,[5] and a remake was released in 1963, directed by William Castle and co-produced with Hammer Film Productions.
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These were nominally similar to haunted house films, excepting that Old Dark House genre rigidly eschewed any hint of the supernatural. These included the likes of The Bat (1926), The Cat and the Canary (1927), The Gorilla (1927), The Last Warning (1929) and sound remakes of these such as The Bat Whispers (1930), The Cat Creeps (1930), The Gorilla (1931), The Cat and the Canary (1939) and The Gorilla (1939). The Old Dark House is a 1932 American pre-Code comedy horror film directed by James Whale. Seeking shelter from a pounding rainstorm in a remote region of Wales, several travelers are admitted to a gloomy, foreboding mansion belonging to the extremely strange Femm family. Trying to make the best of it, the guests must deal with their sepulchral host, Horace Femm and his obsessive, malevolent sister Rebecca.
Saul steals a burning branch from the fireplace and sets fire to a curtain before Roger awakes. They fight and fall off a landing; Saul is killed and Roger injured. Morgan breaks out of the kitchen and returns to the main room.
(Like Frankenstein, James Whale’s touch is so Gothic that one has to actively remind themselves that the film is set contemporary). Whale borrows the lighting effects from The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1919) and German Expressionist cinema, filling the film with starkly bared sets and ominous lighting schemes. Universal had purchased Benighted (1927), a novel by the renowned British writer and broadcaster J.B.
Stranded travelers seek refuge from a raging storm in a forbidding Welsh mansion. However, they soon realize that the mansion's inhabitants are hiding a dark secret in this classic Universal horror mystery. During dinner, the group are joined by Sir William Porterhouse and a chorus girl with the stage name Gladys DuCane, who also seek refuge from the storm.
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