The silent scream | The Spiral Staircase | Dorothy McGuire, George Brent

"Doing the Spiro-Gyra" | The Spiral Staircase | Dorothy McGuire, George Brent

DVDs:


	• The Spiral Staircase Dorothy McGuire, George Brent MGM (Video & DVD), 2005 average customer review:based on 50 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Fun, atmospheric whodunit

The Bottom Line:

The Spiral Staircase is wonderfully atmospheric, which helps the filmmakers generate tension even if guessing the identity of the killer isn't very difficult; the gist of things is that it's short, it's interesting, it's fun and it's well worth your time if you like old-fashioned style mysteries.

3/4

The silent scream

THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE (1945) open unexpectedly within a recreated nickelodeon. A small space with a couple of dozen patrons on straight back wooden chairs, a pianist off to the right of a little screen and a hand-cranking projectionist (who's in the same room) all watch a melodramatic short called THE KISS.

But that brief scene just introduces us to a bygone era. Soon after, this delicious Hitchcockian thriller takes us inside the mansion of Mrs. Warren (Ethel Barrymore) and her two sons. The old lady's in failing health but she's not too sick to worry for her young chambermaid, Helen (Dorothy McGuire). She's a mute who just may be the next target of a serial killer stalking their New England town, a monster that likes to murder women with "imperfections."

Madame's insistence that Dr. Parry (Kent Smith) take Helen with him is a clue perhaps to just who the strangler is.

It's a well-mounted picture that has sets crammed with Victorian-era furnishings, creating a sort of claustrophobic home undoubtedly typical of the well-off of those days.

Miss McGuire is the stand-out of this exceptional cast, but right behind her are Elsa Lanchester's humorously alcoholic cook and Rhonda Fleming as a live-in secretary who's the love interest of both Warren sons: the Professor (George Brent, just past his "leading man" days) and Steve (Gordon Oliver).

A final word for Sara Allgood, who has the unenviable task of being the bearish old woman's put-upon nurse. They clearly despise each other, and it's only a matter of time before a neglected Nurse Barker resigns and leaves in a huff (NOT a Huffmobile!).

Robert Siodmak's classic suspense yarn gets my highest endorsement!

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"Doing the Spiro-Gyra"

When I first saw this movie on PBS in a salute to classics years ago, I was kept on the edge of my sofa. The atmosphere in the New England creepy house is captured beautifully and in the expertly filmed overhead shots of the spiral staircase, we can actually feel ourselves being pulled downward into the maelstrom. Between more pleasant scenes of old movie theaters, the wonderful architecture of the interiors and the character development are scenes of unbearable tension for Helen, the mute servant girl played by Dorothy Maguire, as she realizes the mad killer who murders women with physical afflictions is coming after her next. The murderer who is closer than she ever imagined possible is about to pounce and she has no way to scream for help. Ethyl Barrymore is great, as always, playing Helen's unsympathetic employer. A great movie, a great house, if not so permeated with evil, and great acting.

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This movie grabs you

The Spiral Staircase
This is a thriller that grabs you from the beginning and doesn't let you go. Lots of fun. Ethel Barrymore gives a wonderful performance.

Very good woman-in-danger melodrama in sumptuous old mansion that is really the star

I thought that I'd actually seen this one years ago, but nothing seemed terribly familiar when I gave it a recent viewing. Dorothy McGuire excels at the woman-in-danger roles, and here she is as a young woman rendered mute by unspeakable tragedy in the past, acting as caretaker for a rather gruff and mean bedridden old woman (Ethel Barrymore) in a spooky old Gothic house filled with unpleasant, unhappy people. Young women have been dying in mysterious ways in the town (where, we never learn, but it's a late-Victorian atmosphere - actually 1916 - that seems like it could be in the same neighborhood as the Amberson mansion (from 1942's THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS), in a slightly better part of town than George Bailey's abode (from IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE in 1946) and it looks like murder! The constable believes the killer is in the vicinity, and what's more he's killing women with disabilities.

McGuire is as I said terrific in this kind of role, fragile and yet always with a little underlying steel, though she may not be the most memorable individual in the terrific cast, with George Brent somewhat uncharacteristically creepy as the Professor who to all intents and purposes runs the house for his bedridden mother, Rhonda Fleming as his assistant, and Elsa Lanchester as the hard-drinking housekeeper. Director Robert Siodmak is one of the key figures in the postwar mystery-noir cycle and he packs plenty of suspense into less than 90 minutes here, helped ably by the terrifically atmospheric monochrome photography of Nicholas Musuraca. And the AMBERSONS mention above wasn't accidental - the production was designed by the same man, Albert S. D'Agostino, responsible for that film's wonderful look.

The IMDb and some other sources list this as "film noir", but that's somewhat debatable -- it's a period piece and there really isn't a proper noir protagonist unless it's McGuire. Whatever you call it, it's very well-shot and the suspense is palpable throughout, and enthusiasts of noir or 40s melodrama who haven't gotten to it for some reason certainly should do so.

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A murderer is targeting disabled young women in a sleepy New England town, and Helen (Dorothy McGuire), a mute servant in a Gothic mansion, is terrified she's next! Mrs. Warren (legendary actress Ethel Barrymore in an Oscar®-nominated* performance [Best Supporting Actress, 1946]), the invalid, bullying mistress of the house, warns Helen to leave at once, rather than rely on her weak son and stepson for protection. But even as Helen is packing her things, she suspects she may be too late and the murderer is closer than she ever imagined!