The Spiral Staircase. 1946. Directed by Robert Siodmak.

(7/22/00)

It's an "old house" thriller done up with very lavish production values. (It's a David O. Selznick production.) It's mostly set in a sumptuous mansion and is photographed with shadows on the walls all over the place.

It's about a serial killer who picks on females with some physical disability. The heroine, Dorothy McGuire, has lost her voice. She waits on an old woman who constantly tells her to get out of the house as quickly as possible. She has to deal not only with fear of the killer, but also with the shame of being a burden.

After the opening scene at the hotel where a girl is killed the film is set almost exclusively inside an elegant mansion which gives the film a claustrophobic atmosphere.
I liked it very much how the characters one by one go away--or get drunk--or get locked in the basement--leaving the heroine more and more alone until her final confrontation with the killer. I think the best scene was, after she realizes who the killer is, the constable pays a visit and she can't call to him because she can't use her voice.

This film deals with hostilities lurking beneath the surface of normal life. The family is full of hostility and a doctor in the town is jealous of another young doctor who is just getting established.

Elsa Lanchester was delightful as the housekeeper who thinks she is so clever in stealing a bottle of brandy from the basement by letting the candle go out and dropping it on the floor. Actually, the killer allowed her to steal the brandy and get drunk, just as he hid the ether so that the handyman would have to leave to get some more.

What is really sad is that the old woman thought all along that it was her own son who was the killer, when it was really his half-brother. I was not entirely sure if the old woman died at the climax, though it seemed pretty likely.