The Old Dark House
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| The Old Dark House | |
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 Region 1 DVD Cover |
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| Directed by | James Whale |
| Produced by | Carl Laemmle, Jr. |
| Starring | Boris Karloff Melvyn Douglas Charles Laughton Gloria Stuart Lillian Bond |
| Music by | Bernhard Kaun |
| Cinematography | Arthur Edeson |
| Editing by | Andrew Cohen |
| Release date(s) |  October 20, 1932 |
| Running time | 71 min. |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
The Old Dark House is a 1932 horror film directed by James Whale and starring Boris Karloff, produced just one year after their success with Frankenstein. In spite of the presence of Karloff, The Old Dark House was largely ignored at the American box office, although it was a huge hit in Whale's native England where the audience was more in tune with the director's distinctive, ironic sense of black humour. For many years, it was considered a lost film and gained a tremendous reputation as one of the pre-eminent gothic horror films. Finally, in the late 1960s/early 1970s, the original negative of the film was discovered by Curtis Harrington in the vaults of Universal Studios and restored so that it could once more be shown in public. Filled with humorously sophisticated dialogue, the movie also featured Charles Laughton, Melvyn Douglas, Ernest Thesiger (Doctor Pretorius in Whale's 1935 The Bride of Frankenstein), Raymond Massey, and Gloria Stuart (the elderly "Rose" in 1998's Titanic) as the ravishing young ingenue. According to the Penguin Encyclopaedia of Horror and the Supernatural, the Femm family's ancient patriarch was played by a woman, Elspeth Dudgeon (billed as "John Dudgeon"), because Whale couldn't find a male actor who looked old enough for the role.
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[edit] Plot summary
Seeking shelter from a pounding rainstorm in a remote region of Wales, several travellers 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. Things get worse as the brutish manservant Morgan gets drunk, runs amuck and releases the long pent-up brother Saul, a psychotic pyromaniac who gleefully tries to destroy the residence by setting it on fire.
[edit] Cast & Crew
- Directed by James Whale
- Based upon the 1927 novel Benighted by J. B. Priestley
- Boris Karloff .... Morgan
- Melvyn Douglas .... Roger Penderel
- Charles Laughton .... Sir William Porterhouse
- Lilian Bond .... Gladys DuCane
- Ernest Thesiger .... Horace Femm
- Eva Moore .... Rebecca Femm
- Raymond Massey .... Philip Waverton
- Gloria Stuart .... Margaret Waverton
- Elspeth Dudgeon .... Sir Roderick Femm (as John Dudgeon)
- Brember Wills .... Saul Femm
[edit] Remake
The film was remade in 1963 by horror impressario William Castle for Hammer Film Productions. It starred comedian Tom Poston, and the Boris Karloff role was taken on by Danny Green. The emphasis was on comic aspects of the story.
The supporting cast included Robert Morley, Mervyn Johns, Janette Scott, Joyce Grenfell, Fenella Fielding and Peter Bull. The score was by Benjamin Frankel (who wrote the score for Hammer's The Curse of the Werewolf), and the production was photographed and designed by Hammer stalwarts Arthur Grant and Bernard Robinson, respectively.
