The Uninvited (1944)

Directed by Lewis Allen; produced by Charles Brackett (associate producer)

During their holiday on the north coast of Cornwall, brother and sister Rick and Pam Fitzgerald (Ray Milland, Ruth Hussey) find and fall in love with an old, vacant house. Despite its excellent condition, rumours of ‘disturbances’, which forced out the previous lease-holders, keep the sale price relatively low, and they buy it from the aloof owner, Beech (Donald Crisp). It isn’t long before the Fitzgeralds themselves experience disturbances, and find themselves caught up in a supernatural drama involving scandal, sudden death and Beech’s naïve and conflicted granddaughter, Stella (Gail Russell).

One of the earliest ghost stories to be filmed, The Uninvited is also one of the best. It is not a shocker, and won’t have you jumping from your seat (or trying to hide in it) like The Haunting (1963), or sweating bullets like the entirely earthbound Duel (1971), but The Uninvited is very effective nonetheless. As is often the case with successful films, different elements contribute.

The story is a good one, in that it has some substance to it. There is as much mystery as supernatural to it, as Rick and Pam, aided by the local doctor (Alan Napier), dig into the past, finding reticence and confusion as they investigate what happened at Windward House seventeen years previously.

The tale is adapted from the novel Uneasy Freehold by Dorothy Macardle (I think you’ll agree that the change of title from what may have been thought an essay on real estate to something more foreboding was a good one) and is well-written. Though the climax makes certain the nature of the villainy, there is doubt through much of the movie.

There is a certain light-heartedness that runs through the story, which contrasts with the darkness of possible murder and sinister danger that is also present. That light-heartedness, however, comes not from attempts at comedy-relief (though there is a short episode of that on a small sailboat), but from the characters, specifically Rick Fitzgerald.

He is an easy-going young man who finds humour in everything. This bright and breezy personality is essential to his relationship with Stella; as well, it works, ironically, with the seriousness of the story. Rick attempts more than once to dispel dread - and the possibility of ghosts - with humour. The fact that this humour comes across as awkward at times is due entirely to his realisation that the situation is not a funny one.

Without the talent to bring them to life, these characters would have been two-dimensional, of course. Just a couple of weeks ago, I reviewed Alias Nick Beal, also starring Ray Milland, and wrote then that I couldn’t imagine seeing that actor again without his Nick Beal colouring other performances. I was wrong, which shows what thespian skill can do. Milland is entirely the good-natured Rick Fitzgerald, who would know exactly what to do with the likes of Nick Beal.

Crisp, who is able to change a whole personality with a tone of voice, makes the chilly Commander Beech into a real person, while Cornelia Otis Skinner’s character makes her implied fate credible. (Remarkably, Skinner’s memoirs of her girlhood, Our Hearts Were Young and Gay, were made into a movie and released in the same year as The Univited; Skinner, as an adolescent, was portrayed by none other than Gail Russell.)

If there is one criticism to The Uninvited, it is Russell’s performance. Though this was the third motion picture role of her tragic career, her talent was still developing, and doesn’t approach Milland’s or Hussey’s. To compensate, however, she possesses here an innocence and youth that her character demanded, and Russell’s inclusion in the cast is not deeply injurious to the movie.

The direction is first-rate. As mentioned, there are no moments of outright fright, but a number in which the goose-bumps do rise. The cheap thrills in what passes for scary films of today - something leaping from a closet to loud, sudden strains of music - are completely absent, and the worst violence is caused by a squirrel nipping Rick’s finger.

What is found are a number of eerie scenes and images, a successful use of light and shadows, and implication, rather than expression. There are some good depictions of Stella, who comes to stand at the centre of the drama, moments that reinforce the puzzle that surrounds her.

A partnership of direction and production conjures up what many lesser horror stories fail to accomplish: atmosphere, not just of fright, but of situation and place. Though probably filmed on a back-lot, there is an authenticity to the setting. The initial placement of the story is fixed with evocative scenes of the rocky Cornish seashore, and the sets that comprise Windward House itself surely must have been based on a real building, as the exteriors and interiors match, and seem entirely realistic.

The Uninvited combines many stereotypes of the ghost-story - the haunted house, the innocent victim, the mystery from the past - which, of course, were not stereotypes at the time, and provide an almost genteel treatment of what might have been a lurid tale. This is an excellent movie, and should not be missed.