Boris Karloff doesn't NEED to Speak to be Scary

 

In between directing Frankenstein in 1931 and The Invisible Man in 1933, James Whale's brought an adaptation of J.B. Priestley's novel Benighted to the screen. The movie version is titled The Old Dark House and, by golly, even though there's no monster, it fits atmospherically into the Universal Monsters cycle. Thought to be lost for years, it isn't as well remembered as the Monster films. But, by golly, it should be.

The novel has a theme of post-war disillusionment running through it. The movie has an element of this, but I think tones that theme down significantly in order to emphasis it's brilliant mix of horror and comedy.

A married couple and a friend are caught in a violent storm while driving and are forced to take refuge in a creepy mansion located in the middle of nowhere. Soon after, they are joined by another couple.

The regular inhabitants of the mansion--the Femms-- have all taken Masters Degrees in Being Creepy. An elderly brother and sister are the owners of the mansion. Their butler--Morgan--is a scary looking mute who--we are warned--becomes quite dangerous when he's drunk.

Gee whiz, Boris Karloff (who plays Morgan) is good at being scary. This is the second film in a row he terrifies you without being given a word of dialogue. 

The rest of the cast is wonderful, including Melvyn Douglas, Charles Laughten, Raymond Massey, Gloria Stuart and Ernest Thesiger. The stranded motorists are tossed into a strange situation that's both frightening and absurd. We learn that the Femm siblings have a 102-year-old father who lives upstairs. We learn that there's a locked room upstairs with... well... someone else living inside. And we learn that Morgan is indeed dangerous when he's drunk.

As he does in movies like The Bride of Frankenstein, Whale seemlessly mixes horror and comedy. The result leads us to a fantastic conclusion, with Melvyn Douglas' terrified yet still determined character confronting yet another Femm sibling--an older brother who might possibly be visiting from Crazy Town. 

Here's two videos. The first is the movie, though I don't know the copyright status and can't promise it will be here if you are visiting this blog in the far future. 

And here's a video giving us a superb analysis of the film--much more detailed than what I've written here: