The Old Dark House (1932)

My favorite James Whale film, and the one that clued me into his use of coded gay characters (like Doctor Pretorius in Bride of Frankenstein) some time before Gods & Monsters came about. Everyone has their game face on, but none moreso than Ernest Thesiger, who truly carries The Old Dark House on his back, and kills with some of the film's most biting and memorable dialogue. Karloff is amusing as Morgan, the drunken, Welsh brute butler, but he's almost an afterthought in a role that frankly, could have been played by anyone.

Anyone that feels that old horror films simply can't produce the same tension as modern horror films would do well to watch The Old Dark House for two key scenes. First, Rebecca Femm's (Eva Moore) surreal and disturbingly intimate badgering of Margaret Waverton (Gloria Stuart) in the film's first half (Whale's direction here is superb), and second, the bizarre confrontation between Roger Penderel (Melvyn Douglas) and the batshit insane Saul Femm (Brember Wills). Watching this film as a kid, I was on the edge of my seat as Saul brandished the kitchen knife at Penderel and rambled on about his "study of flame".

When I first saw it, I got such twisted vibe from the thing that I didn't recognize how funny a lot of it really is, but Whale gamely balances humor and ghoulishness and never misses a step. The whole enterprise is a grand and underappreciated accomplishment.

"The Old Dark House" (1932) was Karloff's first movie after Frankenstein made him a star, and he was top billed for it, including a disclaimer before the credits that assures the audience that it really is Karloff under the makeup. But it was kind of misleading to top bill Karloff because his mute-psycho scarface drunken butler role is limited to a few key scenes in an ensemble cast. The film has a lot of little typical fast talking B-genre comedy & drama bits too, which maybe isnt the sheer horror Karloff fans wanted.

The story is an archtypical one of travellers caught out on a dark & stormy night who seek refuge in a gloomy mansion where things are off kilter in almost every way, like a game of Clue. The travelers are urbanites out of place in the remote, odd circumstances. the scary secret of the mansion is progressively hinted at but when you finally see at the very end isn't really that scary, more anticlimactic. I could see how people would have felt ripped off with this follow up, but it is entertaining in its own way to be sure. The special effects at the beginning when the people are driving through floods and avalanches, before they find the mansion, and the shots of the mansion as they approach, are moody and impressive.

another train of thought... "The only stipulation is that you spend one night in a Haunted House"

"isn't that somewhat unusual?"

"No, it's a standard clause."

--the Simpsons


How many movies follow this basic plot? I think there are more than a few that meet the criteria exactly, before you even stretch it --

STANDARD STIPULATION:
Castle of Blood (danza Macabra) (1964)
House on Haunted Hill 1959, 1999
The Legend of Hell House (1973)
Night of the Demons
The Haunting (1963, 1999)
Halloween: Resurrection (2002)
Hell Asylum (2002)
Hold That Ghost (1941)

CLOSE:
Burnt Offerings
The Shining
Amnityville Horror
The Old Dark House (1932)

Old Dark House also kind of reminds me of another Karloff movie, which takes the Marx Bros aspects to ludicrous heights later mined by Warner Bros/Bugs Bunny et al.

Karloff & Lugosi in The Raven (1935)

Supposedly, big-star Karloff hated working on this low-budget penny dreadful production-- when one of the underling co-stars came on set first day & asked Karloff where the bathroom was, he told him "this whole set is a toilet!" But absurd & illogical as it may be, it's Shakespeare compared to modern re-approximations of its archtypical boobytrapped house of horrors schtick. This movie was a revelation to me as plainly the inspiration for numerous Three Stooges, Bugs Bunny, & Mel Brooks routines.

SPOILERS

Lugosi is the retired, genius Doctor--let's call him, Dracula--who the Judge turns to when his dancer daughter is left in a coma after a car wreck and none of the other Docs--including her fiancee--can save her. The Judge has to make a personal call on Dracula to plea for him to come out of retirement & take the case, and appeals to Drac's ego by telling him how he is the only one who can do the job. Drac does save the girl, but falls in love with her too, especially when she thanks him by performing a ballet based on Poe's The Raven, which Dracula is fascinated by Poe and even has a secret collection of Poe-inspired torture devices in his hidden basement behind the revolving-library-panel.

The Judge tells Drac to cool out on his girl & Drac flips a lid about it. He takes in a fugitive killer (Karloff) who wants plastic surgery to make a getaway, but tricks him by instead making him very Frankenstein hideous. Drac then tells Frank he'll make him pretty again if he helps him exact revenge against those who have thwarted his amorous desires. Hilarity ensues as Dracula lures the Judge, his daughter & fiancee, & assorted supporting cast to his mansion for a weekend of fun involving lightning, crashing trees, secret trapdoors, drugs, and of course, Poe-inspired tortures. Dracula meets his in end in a scene later stolen by George Lucas for the Death Star trash compactor, but not before mortally wounding Frankenstein, who saved the day because of his own love at first sight for the Judge's daughter.

A fine smorgasboard of lurid classic camp. I would have called it Dracula vs. Frankenstein in Poe's House of Horrors, though.

I like it too. James Whale was always good for some comedy in his horror films. Much of it works in this film, even if I like the dark atmosphere more.

Glad you were able to make it to the Muisc Box, by the way. I wanted to go over there, but I got stuck at work.

That dinner scene is fantastic.
Did you know the heroine is Old Rose from Titanic?

She was female lead in The Invisible Man as well. A serious stunner in her day for sure.

I was staring at her ass in that silk dress the entire movie. Daaaaaayum.

It's on TCM tonight at 11:30.

Why is it that this a Universal film, but indie companies have put it out on home video?

Because it was a lost film for years and Universal's rights lapsed in the late 1950's before prints were found.