HALLOWEEN HORRORFEST 2020: The Old Dark House (1932)

 Our sponsor today is Los Angeles film critic, podbrother to Witney Seibold and co-creator of the Critically Acclaimed Network, William Bibbiani!  Yesterday I went through the massive number of the great podcast he and Witney do, and here are some more: All Our Yesterdays (A podcast discussing every episode of Star Trek in production order!), The Iron List (a monthly countdown episode where they discuss their Top Ten of a certain subject), All The Best (a podcast reviewing every movie ever nominated for the Best Film Oscar in chronological order), and their titular program, where they discuss current films and curate the Critically Acclaimed Movie Club!  Like yesterday, I strongly recommend you subscribe to their Patreon!

William is representing The American Civil Liberties Union, an organization that has worked extremely hard to make sure democracy works for all...and, not surprisingly, we need it more than ever.

Bibbs has chosen for the sophmore entry in this year’s Gauntlet of Ghoulishness is a classic--and for stretches of time, lost--James Whale flick that stars the one and only Boris Karloff, The Old Dark House!

I suspect horror fans whose knowledge of the genre only stretches back to the 80‘s would wonder what the hell the fuss over this film was about.  After all, it was a big ass deal as late as the 70‘s--until 1968, it was considered a lost film until director Curtis Harrington salvaged a negative from the Universal Vaults, and for the longest times my memories were glimpsing stills in magazines such as Famous Monsters of Filmland*.  They might point out that they’ve seen almost every beat in the film done before and they’re tired of it.

Here’s the deal, though--yes, The Old Dark House is full of haunted house comedy tropes that are utilized to this day.  But damnit, The Old Dark House was the first to come up with these tropes, and the people developing those tropes are genuinely talented and funny people.  In the case of some of them (I’m looking at you, Ernest Thesinger), extremely funny.

The Wavertons (Raymond Massey and Gloria Stuart) are traveling with their friend Roger Penderel (Melvyn Douglas) for...reasons when they end up stranded in an old dark house occupied by decidedly odd siblings Horace (Thesinger) and Rebecca (Eva Moore) Femm, their mute, disfigured butler Morgan (Boris f’in Karloff!)...and their father Roderick (Elspeth Dudgeon) and other sibling Saul (Brember Wills), both are whom are locked up for...reasons.  The Femms grudingly admit the trio--along with Sir William Porterhouse (Charles f’in Laughton!) and his buddy Gladys DuCane/Perkins (Lillian Bond, who is luuuurvlier than Stuart if you ask me)--and allow them to stay the night due to a horrific storm that has washed out the roads.  What follows is akin to a French farce, only with a now-drunk Morgan chasing after Ms. Waverton, a pyromaniac Saul trying to burn the house down, and other shenanigans.

This was fun.  It’s not laugh-out-loud funny, but it has lots of funny moment, a large amount due to the fact that some of these actors are just having a ball doing this.  Hell, Thesinger is absolutely hysterical with his body language and inflections alone (I don’t think anyone can invite a guest to have a potato and make it sound so fussily contemptuous), and Laughton is great barrelling around the house with great gusto and sporting a thick Welsh accent.  There are flaws--I feel Stuart is little more than house decoration**, the romance between Gladys and Roger is pretty cool but violently accelerated and I don’t really get a sense of why the Wavertons are travelling with Penderel in the first place, or who the Wavertons are as a whole.  But the film is so well-acted that it’s fun to watch through its hour-and-twelve-minute running time.

One of the things I do really like about the film is its sense of chaos.  There’s little in the way of expository dialogue, the closest we get to an info dump is the Waverton’s discussion with Roderick, so things just go out of control.  And this being a Whale film, there are moments of just gorgeous filmmaking.  The brief conversation between Ms. Waverton and Rebecca as she changes is partially filmed via the warped mirrors in the room, and it’s really striking.  The first shot of Karloff, his face partially obscured by the door and light falling on his expressive eyes, is amazingly atmospheric.  

I can certainly understand newer horror fans criticizing this for being slowly paced, for not being scary enough, and not being ‘funny’ enough.  But you have to keep in mind that if you ever enjoyed a horror comedy, from Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein on up to A Haunted House, you’ve been picking fruit from the tree that grew from the roots this film laid down.  I’d certainly recommend it, especially since you can find an exceptionally beautiful print on Youtube for free!

Tomorrow, my friend who just happens to be a legendary Australian filmmaker (still makes me feel odd saying that!), Brian Trenchard-Smith will be sponsoring Mario Bava’s debut film, 1960‘s Black Sunday, and you know what that means...gratuitious Barbara Steele love!

There are Twelve Sponsorship Slots Left in the Halloween Horrorfest this year.  To claim one, do one of four things:

1) You can become a Domicile of Dread Patreon at any level.  Patreons always get a free slot, as well as advance access to podcasts and other goodies!

2) You can buy me a coffee at Ko-Fi.  Suggested donation is $3

3) You can make a donation to Black Lives Matter.  Suggested donation is $10.  Please forward your receipt to me as proof.

4) You can choose to make a donation to the charity chosen by a sponsor on his/her/their day. Like with the third possibility, please forward me proof of donation.

As with last year, if I end up with more sponsors than there are days in October, I will go into Horrorfest Overtime, which means Halloween goes into November for me--and you!

*--yes, I know.  Forry J. Ackerman was a pedophile who lived off the corpses of people far, far better than him, but we didn’t know it back then, and his magazine was the only source of news for horror films.  I wish I knew then what I knew now, but I didn’t, so I gave him money to continue collecting kiddie porn, perving on young girls and taking advantage of authors and filmmakers in their dottage that deserved better treatment.  I regret that.  Come at me.

**--I suppose I should mention that this being a pre-Code film, the biggest thing Stuart does is change her clothes, spending several minutes in what passed for lingerie in 1932, which comes off somewhat gratuitious.