the old dark house
abandoned old house. old broken door to the balcony. ancient down pipes .
boris karloff as morgan, “the old dark house” (james whale, 1932) .
old log cabin wall texture. dark rustic house log wall. horizontal timbered background .
cohen media: the old dark house and churchill blu - ray releases de ...
eva moore and gloria stuart in “the old dark house” (james whale, 1932) .
cool old dark wood house background stock photo, picture and royalty free image. image 14355275 .
haunted horror house. old wooden grungy dark evil haunted house with evil spirits with full moon cold fog atmosphere and trees illustration .
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old log cabin wall texture. dark rustic house log wall. horizontal stock photo: 146745877 - alamy
in 1963, william castle directed a comedic version of priestley' s story, the old dark house .
69 old wooden grungy dark evil haunted house stock photos, vectors, and illustrations are available royalty - free .
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dracula frankenstein the old dark house rebecca the uninvited the ghost and mrs. muir the house on haunted hill 13 ghosts horror films scary films ghost stories gothic horror and haunted houses
a scary haunted red wooden house in the country with old trees and dark clouds in the sky for a fear or halloween concept .
william castle film collection - 5 movie pack: 13 ghosts, mr. sardonicus, homicidal, the old dark house, 13 frightened
william castle film collection - 5 movie pack: 13 ghosts, mr. sardonicus, homicidal, the old dark house, 13 frightened girls
the old dark house is directed by william castle and adapted to screenplay by robert dillon from the novel benighted written by j. b. priestly .
old dark house: the trope namer, although the trope is older, dating back to lon chaney' s the monster and the stage productions of the cat and the canary .
stylishly filmed, the old dark house is a one - of - a - kind film peppered by fine performances from a stellar cast. using the framework of a horror story, whale let his talents loose and created a camp masterpiece. while not a traditional thriller, the old dark house is nevertheless creepy and moody .
it is very obvious that the old dark house was richard o' brien' s inspiration for the rocky horror picture show. the couple caught in the rain, ...
the old dark house was whale' s second horror film after 1931' s frankenstein and his return to the genre sees the director leaning fully in to its gothic tropes .
curtis harrington saves the old dark house (480i; 7: 08) is an older archival piece with harrington recounting what he had to go through to save the film .
shrill, sly, and terrifying, the old dark house would coin a new horror subgenre, just as frankenstein had; this time, the species would bear the name of whale' s remarkable film. ever since, in films like the haunting and rosemary' s baby, we have been cheerfully going into the old dark house first let to us by james whale .
james whale' s old dark house is an atmospheric, sardonic and deft delight of a film. beautifully lit. beautifully shot. beautifully (if camply) performed .
old wooden grungy dark evil haunted house with evil spirits with full moon cold fog atmosphere in the wood. halloween horror theme halloween. illustration of a spooky foggy forest in night .
in the late 1920 and throughout the 1930s, there flourished a sub - genre of horror films that one has dubbed the old dark house thriller. these were nominally similar to haunted house films, excepting that old dark house genre rigidly eschewed any hint of the supernatural. instead, the dark gloomy old mansions would be filled with masked killers (who usually adopted the name of some animal), mad relatives locked away in the attic or supernatural elements that at the end were revealed to be an absurdly contrived plot upon the part of relatives to drive someone crazy and obtain their inheritance. these included the likes of
master of horror james whale, the man behind frankenstein, the invisible man and the bride of frankenstein, arguably kick - started an entire sub - genre with the 1932 gothic horror film the old dark house, which paved the way for films like the texas chain saw massacre and house of 1000 corpses .
the sole co - production for hammer films and master showman william castle, the 1963 version of the old dark house would be dreary stuff even if james whale' s 1932 film hadn' t been ...
the old dark house
was shown at a midnight screening at the 1970 san francisco film festival along with another long - lost early - 1930' s horror classic ,
mystery of the wax museum .
college professor ben (stoppard) moves his family to an isolated house, and is tormented by visions of blood and death. conventional old dark house thriller, spoiled by reliance on clichés (dank cellars, flickering lights) and an uninteresting central character .
the cohen media group has officially announced the four new 4k restorations that will head to u. s. theaters later this year: king of hearts, the official story, the old dark house, and heat and dust .
the old dark house (1932). director - james whale. stars: ernest thesiger, melvyn douglas, boris karloff, charles laughton. moria - the science - fiction, horror and fantasy film review .
each of the characters plays a role in a storyline, which has no central villain, rather evil as a unit. this is something that makes the old dark house different than dracula, frankenstein, or the mummy. there is no central focus of horror but the uncertainty of nature. be it saul, morgan, the femms, or the house itself, the story illustrates an allegory for the cruelty of fate. though the old old dark house has become synonymous with a cliche that is still portrayed in cartoons and terribly written stories, its birth came on the wings of tension and excellence .
whale loosened up a lot with the old dark house (1932), a bizarre little film with an all - star cast that, along with frankenstein, would someday provide the inspiration for the rocky horror picture show .
the cohen media group has detailed its upcoming blu - ray releases of the new 4k restoration of james whale' s the old dark house and jonathan teplitzky' s churchill. the two releases will be available for purchase this october .
before taking a closer look at the film, and some of the fascinating recesses that whale worked into the story through his sly visual genius, let' s pinpoint this particular old dark house on a larger literary and cinematic map .
this technicolour comedy - horror is a remake of the original 1932 classic horror directed by james whale. we all know the path the majority of remakes go and this colour version of the old dark house is another that can be added to the list .
what struck me, not having seen the old dark house in several years, is how suggestively whale uses lighting and design to create a world that both traps and exposes the characters, or rather forces them to reveal themselves .
“a group of stranded travelers stumble upon a strange old house, and find themselves at the mercy of the highly eccentric, and potentially dangerous, femm family. ”
i' ve never seen the old dark house. i' m going to see if i can change that. this has a terrific cast. wow. thanks, m. m. great post (as always). : )
gothic, horror, and haunted houses, part 1: dracula (1931), frankenstein (1931), the old dark house (1932), rebecca (1940), the uninvited (1944), the ghost and mrs. muir (1947), the house on haunted hill (1959), 13 ghosts (1960) .
the old dark house is a universal horror movie from the year 1932. it is based on the 1927 novel benighted by j. b. priestley. it was directed by james whale and features boris karloff among its cast. both men previously contributed to the 1931 frankenstein .
we’ve just learned that cohen media group will be releasing a 4k restoration of the boris karloff - starring the old dark house on blu - ray this coming october. the blu - ray, now available for pre - order, is set to be released on october 24 .
an american who sells cars in england receives a mysterious invitation from an old, eccentric millionaire to visit his house in which he lives with his twin brother .
. whale refined the long tradition of' old dark house' thrillers — poe' s story
the fall of the house of usher
is a defining work — and in the process, created a hilarious, and sometimes disturbing (who' s sane? really !), picture that holds up remarkably well after more than three - quarters of a century .
the cohen media group has provided us with the first official u. s. trailer for the new 4k restoration of director james whale' s classic film the old dark house (1932), starring boris karloff, melvyn douglas, charles laughton, lilian bond, and ernest thesiger. the ...
just as whale set the standard for horror with frankenstein, he created in the old dark house a classic of the horror subgenre named for this very film that announced whale’s distinctive blend of horror, satire, camp and farce. the typical “old dark house” film features innocents who stumble upon a sinister mansion; here, in a typically perverse whale touch, the heroes are a flighty, cynical quintet who are hardly wholesome themselves. still, they are no match for the freakish femm family that inhabits the house. perversely, whale cast aging actress elspeth dudgeon as the femm patriarch – she is credited in the film as “john dudgeon, ” a secret joke that was not revealed until 1975 .
according to an old school friend, sill went through a series of female lovers whom she treated with mild contempt.' i just have her around to clean my house,' she would say of some poor besotted creature when friends visited the stone canyon house .
after the success of frankenstein (1931), and before the future successes of the invisible man (1933) and bride of frankenstein (1935), james whale directed the old dark house (1932). this once lost movie provides as much early dna for the horror genre as those other whalean masterworks. it’s hard to think of a title that sounds older and creakier than the old dark house, but the film remains stylish, funny, and surprisingly modern. for a brisk 72 - minutes, the film entertains handsomely and never varies its perfect tone of witty suspense or its atmosphere of wry, comic horror .
this is a continuing series reviewing classics and gems of the universal horror group. the universal horror group was a series of american horror films that were popular in the early to mid part of the 20th century. the classic cast of dracula, frankenstein, the invisible man, the mummy, and the wolfman have become iconic in the annals of cinema. while the aforementioned characters and their respected movies have become iconic of the universal horror group, there were other films made at the same period and by the same studio. the old dark house was one of them and never made it to a cereal box like the other films. despite this fact, the horror films of the early 30’s and 40’s sometimes hold great unappreciated gems. the old dark house is one of them .
on will stanton' s 11th birthday, he discovers he is the last of the old ones, beings with ancient knowledge of the power of the light, and must collect and join six signs to wage a battle against the dark. he is aided in his quest by merriman lyon, the first of the old ones, and races to retrieve the signs before the forces of the dark, led by the mysterious black rider. dogging his footsteps is the sinister yet somehow sympathetic walker, whose role in the struggle (along with will' s family) reveals the cruel consequences of loved ones caught in the middle of a timeless war. when the dark starts to rise, will with the help of merriman lyon and herne the hunter, stall the dark in their effort and wait until the second and final rising .
special thanks: rob stone, library of congress; pat doyen, george eastman house .
merriman explains to will that two things have saved him; the real name of maggie barnes, and the road that they have used. the road is one of the old ways, trodden by the old ones over several millennia, and therefore protected from the powers of the dark. the walker has been frozen in time; merriman releases him and sends him to another time, believing that the old man needs peace. whilst merriman disappears, will returns home, now with two of the signs .
he made this film in between his classics frankenstein (1931) and the invisible man (1933); and in his masterpiece, bride of frankenstein (1935), he uses some key actors from the old dark house, including karloff and ernest thesiger (who in the later film chewed up the scenery as the wild - eyed dr. pretorius) .
the first world war broke out when priestley was twenty, so he joined the duke of wellington’s regiment and was invalided by mortar fire, an event that inspired fierce criticism of the officer class in his autobiography ‘margin released’. initially developing a reputation as a humorous writer, his novel ‘benighted’ was transformed by james whale into the bizarre gothic satire ‘the old dark house’ .
wagstaff - it was a wonderful treat to read about the old dark house here at the house next door this eve. silly as you may have felt writing it, i got a huge giggle out of: ... our trio comes upon a large, ominous house. it' s old. it' s dark. (maybe you didn' t feel silly at all... i dunno .) i' m a huge, huge fan of this film, and this is the perfect time of the year to sell this flick. thesiger is an outstanding screen presence and horace' s ongoing talk of his atheism throughout the film amuses me to no end - it seems so bold for a picture this old (or maybe i just haven' t seen the right old movies). i hope people take your recommendation on this one, as they' ll be greatly rewarded. posted by ross ruediger on 2006 - 10 - 05 03: 27: 00
as his paranoia rises ben convinces himself he' s witnessing apparitions from the past and begins investigating jack (russell tovey) – an ex - military man suffering from ptsd – and local priest father patrick (paul kaye), while a mysterious owl - faced boy seems to be the key to the sinister secrets that lurk within this archetypal old dark house .
darkly comic and beautifully made, this creaky old house story still has the ability to send a shiver down the spine. a story about a couple breaking down and seeking refuge in an old dark house these days is a well worn premise. here it still feels fresh and you will be swept up bythe macabre and wonderfully creepy characters you encounter. exactly what is upstairs haunts the entire story and when it is finally revealed, enough tension has been built for it to genuinly spook you. if you like the universal monster films and especially james whales' output this is a real treat .
the production of early cinema ran at an incredible pace and is reminiscent of grindhouse cinema in the later 20th century. boris karloff, who one year earlier played one of his most iconic roles, frankenstein, also starred in more than 10 films that same year. the old dark house, also helmed by frankenstein director james whale, was released the same year as karloff’s the mummy and the mask of dr. fu manchu. for every film in which a star became known were a handful of others that never made it to that status. for early cinema, however, those handful of films happened yearly. the old dark house may not be karloff’s most remembered film, but it is another artifact to show the versatility of not only the actor but the studio that was literally cranking out these films by the dozen .
at some point, it seems, a car accident reduced sill to such pain that she returned to' the dark peace' .
you might argue that, in film history, the old dark house doesn’t lead anywhere. it has precedents in comic horrors such as the cat and the canary, but us spookery went somewhere less challenging after the shocks of tod browning and edward g ulmer. the wolfman and dracula ended up becoming part of a franchise family that has echoes in the current marvel universe. the coupling of sexual unpleasantness with horror wasn’t much welcome in hollwood once the hays code came in .
the brutal stabbing murder of a justice - of - the - peace sparks an investigation of dark family secrets in a sleepy small town in southern california .
( 1932), she was not only disguised as an old man, but billed pseudonymously as male to boot .
the ark: potiphar is convinced that another biblical flood is imminent, and has built an ark, complete with animals, in the backyard of the femm house .
: oh, you have no idea. every night in this house, with just a whole family of femms .
as merriman finishes explaining, the hall is attacked by the forces of the dark. the sounds of howling dogs and of his mother' s voice draw will to a door that appears in the wall; the dark are attempting to draw will out. merriman explains that the forces of the dark are always threatening them, and that their power is now growing. the forces of the dark threaten the hall again, and the rider appears in the darkness. though will drives back the threat, the portal doors through which he first came reappear, and in his eagerness to return home, he breaks the circle of three held by him, merriman and the lady, leaving them defenseless. in order to protect him and merriman, the lady uses her power to open the portal doors, returning merriman and will to the chiltern hills, but at the cost of her vanishing in the process. though she remains undefeated by the dark, merriman explains that she has retreated for now, needing time to recover from the ordeal .
dangers of the digital home the ft’s edwin heathcote looks at the dark side of the ‘internet of things’: “our houses are being possessed. and the 21st century’s evil spirits are the ghosts controlling our machine. ” (ft )
the old dark house is a wonderful survivor of the early sound era. belonging to said era, it is particularly stage - bound and theatrical, naturally. what is so wonderful about it is that it is rabidly antic, full of marvelously overwrought characterizations, and almost every scene seems to rearrange the world we are visiting. a lot of stuff is compressed into this thing. james whale was a true weirdo sophisticate .
is there a better horror film than the old dark house? yes, there probably is. ranking films in such fashion is, of course, a mug’s game. also, you might reasonably argue that james whale’s extraordinary 1932 entertainment isn’t really a horror movie at all. there is nothing of the supernatural about it. the picture leans towards camp mania as much as it does towards the ghost story. there’s really nothing much like it in the canon .
will asks the walker for the second sign, showing him the first that he already possesses. the walker miserably explains how the sign has been such a burden for him. he is also suspicious, hoping that will is the one he has been waiting for and not a servant of the dark. he trusts neither the dark nor the light. will is forced to command him to give him the sign, and the walker relents, handing him the sign of bronze .
one of the most authentically bizarre old hollywood movies i' ve ever seen. my head is still swimming trying to guess what was intentional .
in the old dark house, i was fascinated by the frank yet subtle depiction of laughton' s character' s homosexuality. his mistress explains that their relationship
isn' t like that
, because he
isn' t that type .
he just finds that traveling with a female companion allows him to avoid uncomfortable questions. this seems particularly brave since both laughton and whale were somewhat of that ilk .
granada tv made superb versions of both this and ‘lost empires’, about a dark romance in the dying days of music hall. they’re available now on dvd .
one of the most haunting images in the film, that we see a couple of times, is of huge curtains billowing in dark corridors: the inspiration originally came from the cat and the canary, and that motif has been reused in many pictures, most poetically in cocteau' s beauty and the beast (1946). although whale' s film, like the novel, is set in its present day, he' s turned that welsh manor into something out of the dark ages — not to mention something out of the dark, if droll, emotional recesses of all of the characters .
on 23 november 1979, judee sill was found dead at her house in the unglamorous north hollywood area where she' d spent most of her life. cause of death was given as' acute cocaine and codeine intoxication'. her old asylum friends did not find out until the following year .
a family inherits what proves to be a haunted house, but a special pair of goggles allows them to see their ghostly tormentors .
on one condition: if a member of the femm family wants to keep their share of the fortune, they must live in the house and be present for the daily gathering or they' ll lose it .
after a narrow escape from a wet and sodden avalanche, our trio comes upon a large, ominous house. it’s old. it’s dark. they bang on the thick, heavy door, seeking entry. it opens to reveal the half - visage of morgan, the mad, mumbling butler played by boris karloff. in one of those classic universal horror closeups so exquisite and so careful that it’s worth the price of admission, the door slowly widens so his face waxes full. we see the black beard and coarse skin, the scarred nose and the hirsute brow…and then it closes again, his face eclipsed by the dark. the hulking neanderthal morgan is one of karloff’s and makeup guru jack p. pierce’s finest collaborations, ranking alongside their other classic creations like frankenstein’s monster and the mummy .
chairman of the brawl: saul attacks roger with a chair, which is in pieces after two hits. with him out cold, he then tries to burn down the house .
for those readers who haven’t yet seen this gem, i will stop the retelling here…before the lights go out…before morgan gets his drunk on. suffice to say that the old dark house has more secrets upstairs—secrets like the bedridden 102 year old patriarch sir roderick femm, played by actress elspeth dudgeon, but billed as “john dudgeon” and, on the very top landing, behind a door that is padlocked and bolted shut, the darkest secret of all: a pyromaniac madman known as saul femm (brember wills). we’ve already been warned what can happen: “the fact is, morgan is an uncivilized brute. sometimes he drinks heavily. a night like this will set him going and once he’s drunk he’s rather dangerous. ”
disc # 1 - - the old dark house 1. shelter from the storm [ 10: 36 ] 2. unwelcome guests [ 10: 37 ] 3. six strangers [ 11: 17 ] 4. upstairs [ 9: 23 ] 5. funny feeling [ 7: 24 ] 6. an unlucky house [ 8: 56 ] 7. playing with fire [ 13: 41 ] 8. chapter 8 [: 01 ] 1. chapter 1 [ 14: 43 ] 2. chapter 2 [: 01 ] 1. chapter 1 [ 7: 06 ] 2. chapter 2 [: 02 ]
in the old dark house, i was fascinated by the frank yet subtle depiction of laughton' s character' s homosexuality. his mistress explains that their relationship
isn' t like that
, because he
isn' t that type .
he just finds that traveling with a female companion allows him to avoid uncomfortable questions. yeah, the movie treats it in a very matter - of - fact manner, neither with hostility or with derision, which would have been the usual approach in those days .
the old dark house’s singularity is (or should be) part of its appeal. a few years ago i showed it to students at the huston school of film in galway, fulling expecting them to hate it. only one had even heard of it, never mind seen the thing, but they laughed in all the right places and seemed properly unnerved by its creepier moments. enjoy the film in full here. interestingly, having fallen into copyright hell, it is not officially owned by anybody. so, this post is legal and everything .
james whale directs this classic adaptation of j. b. priestley' s novel in which five people travelling through wales end up lost and seek sanctuary in an old house. upon their arrival they are introduced to the building' s owners who seem at first to be most accommodating, but as the evening draws on they realise all is not as it seems. when lives begin to be claimed and terrifying events take place, can they find and stop the murderer lurking in the house before it' s too late ?
hints are dropped about the existence of a mad relative in the attic. it soon becomes apparent that everyone in the house is a bit touched. especially rebecca, who rants about
wickedness
in their family' s past. in the film' s weirdest moment, gloria stuart changes her wet clothes while the old woman speaks of her blasphemous father .
you' re wicked too ,
she says suddenly, admonishing the young woman .
you think of nothing but your long straight legs and your white body and how to please your man .
she fingers the edge of staurt' s dress and says
this is fine stuff, but it will rot ,
and then touches stuart' s bosom and says
that' s finer stuff still, but it will rot too in time .
stuart screams and flees the room. like the antagonists of the later rocky horror, the inhabitants of the old dark house seem to be hollywood monsters primarily because of seemingly perverse sexuality .
there is a small and silent “every day dinner scene” in the film, once we arrive at the house. the scene is greater than words certainly. it is the ordinary made extraordinary and the extraordinary made ordinary. it is unnecessary, but essential .
help support this site by using any of my amazon links — costs nothing extra. thanks! this text link goes to art house and international dvds .
the film is particularly well entitled, or rather retitled as we saw above, since the house itself seems to be the most vivid, not to mention central, character. through whale' s fertile, and feverish, visual genius, the house becomes a reflection of all of the characters, much as, say, the crumbling - before - completed xanadu becomes an externalization of welles' s title character in citizen kane (1941) .
the two boys also meet maggie barnes the dairymaid at the farmhouse, who apparently has a liking for their elder brother max. the boys leave with some mincemeat for their mother, and on the way back past the churchyard, they see the old tramp again, who is imminently attacked and scared away by rooks, much to the confusion of the boys .
meanwhile, the monster hears the sound of a violin playing
ave maria
and comes upon a cottage in the forest. inside lives an old blind man who invites the monster into his home. he holds out his hands to the monster, who is overwhelmed by his charity, and gives him food and shelter. during his stay, the monster learns how to speak - and how to smoke cigars. the old man tells him that it is
bad to be alone
and the monster smiles at him and says
friend. good .
these scenes are unforgettable, especially when the old blind man holds the crying monster' s hands and thanks god for bringing him a friend .
we open on a dark and stormy night somewhere in the welsh mountains. the rain is coming down in bucketfuls. a rickety old jalopy struggles on a road so precarious it seems half precipice and half mudslide. as someone later observes, it’s nice weather for ducks. driving the car are philip and margaret waverton (raymond massey and gloria stuart) trying to make their way to shrewsbury. the desperate, bickering sarcasm of the wavertons’ opening dialogue is characteristic of the whole production :
an inspector calls is quite wonderful. i love the old alistair sim film and there have been several more radio productions on the bbc, there was version with bob peck and one from 2010 on the bbc with toby jones. quite wonderful .
ernest thesiger (1879–1961) — began as a painter at london' s slade school of fine art, became a renowned theatre actor including a leading role in bernard shaw' s saint joan (1924), then in the early' 30s went to hollywood at his friend james whale' s request to appear in the old dark house; other credits include olivier' s henry v (1944), anthony asquith' s the winslow boy (1948), brian desmond hurst' s scrooge (1951; us title a christmas carol), the robe (1953), ronald neame' s the horse' s mouth (1958) .
as i had been commissioned to renovate the house and prepare it for a change of use, i thought that if we were to renovate the house, then surely we should restore this painting. i raised the question of its restoration with the gallery. the then assistant director, dr. brian kennedy, agreed at once to have the painting restored if it was a honthorst in return for which the jesuits would make it available for exhibitions when required. he then brought the restorer, sergio benedetti, to examine the painting and we agreed on the final details for its cleaning .
james whale had this instinct in spades. he never does anything halfway. if the script calls for rain, the rain comes down in bucketfuls and gets everyone soaked. when three grown men wrestle boris karloff to the ground, they really scuffle hard and throw their weight around. gloria stuart opens a window, and it’s like she’s just let a hurricane enter the room. the book calls for our lost travelers to stop and consult a map that’s too wet to read, and on screen the map is as sopping wet as a dirty dish rag. this is the main reason that james whale’s darkly humorous films withstand repeated scrutiny. the storming rains won’t wash them away because, like the old dark house itself, they’re built on a foundation of solid rock .
philip: “i’ve never been in a better temper in my life! i love driving a hundred miles through the dark practically without headlights. i love the trickle of ice cold water pouring down my neck. this is one of the happiest moments of my life! ”
john smith offers will refreshment, and also introduces him to a white mare, a horse that comforts will. eventually, will leaves, and then finally meets the old tramp, who will knows to be the walker. the walker asks him to show him' the sign' which will knows to be the quartered iron circle that mr dawson gave him, but as he does so, the rider appears again, scaring away the old man. the rider grows in size, attempting to seize will, who is rescued by the white mare from the smithy. will escapes from that time and from the clutches of the rider, and is led through the chiltern hills. the horse abandons him on the road, but when will gets up, he finds two great doors standing before him on the road. passing through the doors, will finds himself in a great hall with many tapestries. here, will meets two people; merriman lyon and the lady. both explain to will that he is one of the old ones, a servant of the light with exceptional magical abilities who came into his inheritance on his eleventh birthday. merriman begins to teach will about his abilities, namely telepathy and telekinesis, learning how to place images in other people' s minds and how to extinguish and relight fires. after that, merriman explains will' s quest to him; to seek and to protect the six signs of the light, which had been devised by the old ones. the enemy of the light, the dark, is rising again, and must be stopped .
geffen, who' d made the first of his fortunes on the back of another bisexual songstress, laura nyro, landed sill a lucrative publishing deal with a handsome advance. the money enabled her to make a down payment on a house on the valley side of stone canyon .
dr. frankenstein (colin clive again) lies in a swoon following his ordeal, lamenting that
perhaps death is sacred and i profaned it .
he is visited during the night by dr. pretorius (the old dark house' s ernest thesiger). minnie, the housekeeper, describes him as a
queer old looking gentleman .
it is worth noting that pretorius interrupts dr. frankenstein and his bride on their wedding night. pretorius has
grown
life in jars and wishes to join forces with the doctor .
to gods and monsters ,
he announces as the two men drink a toast. the scene were he displays a series of jars containing tiny living kings, queens, bishops and ballerinas is one of the most magical in the history of film (and a marvel of special effects considering its day. )
science ,
he tells dr. frankenstein ,
like love, has her little surprises as you shall see .
the femms and morgan are still, well, who they were at the beginning, although the pyromaniac, cradled by morgan, may be dead. transformation has fallen back into stasis; no doubt the house has remained unchanged for centuries, just getting older and, with the fires put out for now, darker .
there are twists and turns aplenty in this deeply strange comedy that seems far ahead of its time. it' s a highly entertaining, multi - layered combination of laughs, tension and dark visual beauty .
i hadn' t heard of the old dark house until just a few years ago when james
the angry video game nerd
rolfe decided to film a trip through his video collection. he really raved about what a wonderful film it was, a perfect mix of humor and horror that was produced by two of his filmmaking icons: hammer films and william castle. at the time i didn' t realize just how little shit i knew about shit because i wasn' t familiar with either name, and yet here was a guy i like and identify with splattering compliments all over them. using my stubborn desire to want to know everything about everything in the world of film, i grabbed a pen and…
reviewer pronouncing it
a laboriously arch and broad blend of humor and the creeps. it still leaves the old j. b. priestley property as defunct as a doornail. even a picturesque cast... . can' t rejuvenate it .
in interviews, sill said the spiritual hunger that drove her to seek the' dark peace' also drove her to express her pain in song. her discovery of religious and theosophical literature, as well as magic, gave her new subjects to sing about, too .
once inside, we are introduced to the owner of the house, miss rebecca femm (eva moore), a squat, inhospitable zealot who keeps yelling “no beds, we’ve got no beds” at our weary travelers. “you must excuse my sister. she is deaf... sometimes quite deaf” explains her brother, the cadaverous horace femm, brilliantly played by ernest thesiger, who would later go on to play dr. pretorius in bride of frankenstein. thesiger’s richly comic performance—all nervous tics and sinister, passive - aggressive cowardice—is the tingling spine of the old dark house. a fellow brit, he was one of whale’s favorites and known as an actor’s actor. he was an open homosexual who sat around the set between setups doing his favorite hobby: needlepoint (he even wrote a book on the subject). whale liked to shoot his thin frame from cockeyed angles. patrick macnee said that such was the angle of his nostrils, that whenever he surveyed you, which was often, it was as though you were being transfixed by his olfactory organ instead of his eyes .
this is a excellent remake of a 1932 film that then stared boris karloff, he was asked to come back for a role in this film but refused because the script read to much comedy. and that' s what this is a comedy with a little horror one of william castle' s many films. the house itself from the outside reminds me of the housed used in the tv serial the addams family. tom poston was over the top as a yo0ung sales man from ny in england to deliver an american car. ends up at a haunted house with a crazy family. very enjoyable 1960 film. 4 stars
the next morning, will is woken by music, which fades away as he wakes. the house is silent on midwinter' s day. as he looks outside, he hears the music again, and again it stops. he goes to wake his brothers robin and james, but for some strange reason they don' t wake, and remain in a deep sleep. he shouts in the silent household, but nobody responds. will dresses and leaves the house through the back door. the world outside is also completely silent as he walks, and again he remembers mr dawson' s words:'... tomorrow will be beyond imagining.' whilst walking back in the direction of dawson' s farm, he hears the sound of a hammer striking metal. in huntercombe lane, he comes to a group of unusual old buildings. he realises he has entered a different time. here, will meets john smith, a blacksmith working on a horse shoe. he also meets the black rider for the first time; he seems to know who will is, and at the same time will seems to recognize him. the rider tries to capture will as he departs on his dark horse, but the smith saves him by pulling him out of reach .
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comedy horror at its best, robert morley the master of the house. keeping members of the family, prisoners in the large country mansion. twins known as casper and jasper, the one who shares an apartment in london, has an american friend he invites to his country home to meet the rest of the members of his family. great 60' s technicolour film and a bit like carry on screaming, starring felnella fielding .
an artefact from the past. but don' t let that put you off. this is a stunning restoration of an 80 year old film that was previously thought to be lost to time. and its great fun to boot! a must buy .
merriman leads will to a clearing. when merriman questions him as to where they are, will realises he is standing in the grounds of the future huntercombe manor, owned in his time by a miss greythorne. as he realizes this, he suddenly sees the huntercombe lane from his time appear before him, and glimpses his own house. merriman explains that the old ones are loosely placed in time, meaning they can move between various periods of history (in other words, time travel). the doors that will discovered are only one of the gateways through time. merriman provides some background to the time that will entered from his own time; he had entered the time of the royal forests, preserved by the kings of england centuries ago .
the film does, however, draw a distinction — one of degree — between the comic horror we can see downstairs and something more wretched lurking upstairs. in a masterstroke of unheimlich, whale casts a woman, elspeth dudgeon, as the 102 - year old sir roderick femm, who knows something awful about another, unseen member of the family .
at about the 33 minute mark of the film there are two times when you can clearly hear the motor of the fan rev up to create the wind .
' there was a lot of hanging out at her house,' says straw.' she was surrounded by her adoring female fans. i remember going round there one morning and there were maybe four or five other women, all sunbathing in the nude.'
husband and wife philip and margaret waverton are driving to shrewsbury along with their friend penderel. they become lost somewhere in rural wales in the midst of a rainstorm. a mudslide then washes out the road ahead. they seek refuge at a nearby house where they are welcomed by the eccentric horace femm, who lives with his deaf and suspicious sister rebecca and the mute, sinisterly hulking butler morgan. 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. the drunken morgan now lets saul loose .
what makes it even more disappointing is that a spark of intelligence is evident at the film' s heart, with the pieces of the puzzle falling into place in a supremely satisfying manner (even if the ending itself is fairly anticlimactic). unfortunately by then it' s too little too late – blackwood' s adherence to convention leaves it feeling strangely old fashioned .
the thought of the storm leaving everyone stranded in the house has horace spooked. something upstairs seems to bother him. “i am rather a nervous man, ” he explains after dropping a dish. his frightful reluctance to go upstairs to retrieve a lamp after the storm knocks the lights out is quite funny. try as he might, philip can’t make horace femm ascend the stairs; it’s like trying to put a cat into water .
laughton is one of several dissolute young people — all affected by the first world war, we feel — who, on an appallingly rainy night, end up sheltering at the house of the horrible femme family. the first person they meet is karloff as a towering, grunting butler named morgan. “even welsh oughtn’t to sound like that, ” one of the party says upon hearing his efforts at speech .
they are welcomed at the door by a monstrous, mute butler named morgan (boris karloff). the masters of the house are the elderly horace and rebecca femm. like rocky horror' s riff raff and magenta, they are siblings... and there are subtle suggestions of incest. horace invites his wet guests to sit by the fire while his sister rebecca repeatedly shrieks that there are no beds .
' judee was troubled, but there were a lot of people then that were troubled,' says music business lawyer bill straw, who met her in the autumn of 1969.' she had been a junkie, and she contrasted the white peace - the term she used for lsd - with the dark peace, which was heroin. but she was not using heroin when i knew her.'
to begin at the beginning, the femm family is obviously very rich, but that wealth was not gained legitimately. the founder of the line was a notorious pirate called morganó whom we are indeed apparently supposed to identify with that captain morgan, even though the timeline and biography for the femmsí morgan donít remotely line up with his. building this house in the middle of a swamp was morganís way of going belatedly straight, and the terms of the trust in which he put his plundered riches were intended to keep all of his descendants out of the buccaneering business, too. in order to maintain any claim to a share of the family fortune, a femm must meet at least a minimal standard of permanent residence within the old manse; they must be present beneath its roof each midnight, which is obviously incompatible with a life of piracy on the high seas. that it would also be incompatible with many other totally legitimate lifestyles was apparently of no concern to morgan. the trust is inalterable so long as the house remains within the family, which is the next best thing to saying itís inalterable forever, since thereís also a clause forbidding its sale. not even arson would get the clan out from under their ancestorís thumb, since the only fire that could harm the fortress - like walls of femm manor is the volcanic variety from which the basalt blocks originally sprang. meanwhile, the funds disbursed from the trust as an allowance to the heirs are equally divided among all of them who play by its rules, so that they each have an obvious incentive to engineer each otherís disinheritance.
the old dark house is a 1932 american pre-code horror comedy film directed by james whale and starring boris karloff . the film is based on the novel benighted ( 1927 ) by j. b. priestley . the supporting cast includes melvyn douglas , gloria stuart , charles laughton and ernest thesiger . 
the old dark house is a 1932 american pre-code horror comedy film directed by james whale and starring boris karloff. the film is based on the novel benighted (1927) by j. b. priestley. the supporting cast includes melvyn douglas, gloria stuart, charles laughton and ernest thesiger.
the old dark house is a 1932 american pre-code horror comedy film directed by james whale and starring boris karloff. the film is based on the novel benighted (1927) by j. b. priestley. the supporting cast includes melvyn douglas, gloria stuart, charles laughton and ernest thesiger.