Discuss The Old Dark House
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Surprisingly intelligent script, excellent character development
posted by genplant29STAFFMOD on March 31, 2017 at 3:51 AM
In this film featuring a wonderful array of fascinating, odd, delightful, endearing, and creepy characters, easily my personal favourite character is Horace Femm (Ernest Thesiger). Never has anyone made better entrances, or bid guests such an eccentric farewell! Also, I love when he says, "My sister was on the point of arranging these flowers." TOSS. And never, before or since, has "Have a potato" been such a wonderfully memorable line!
This is a film that always impresses me with its quality character development and sharp, intelligent, excellent script, as well as its strong sense of setting. You somehow feel like you "get" this place, and like you get to know complete characters and what they're about and where they're coming from. The cast is superb and a thorough treat.
How could this film help but be a treasure, considering its cast is comprised of (in order of appearance) Gloria Stuart, Raymond Massey, Melvyn Douglas, Boris Karloff, Ernest Thesiger, Eva Moore, Lilian Bond, Charles Laughton, Elspeth Dudgeon, and Brember Wills? A true bounty of riches.
Please check out the following list of titles and celebrities I've created TMDb threads for: https://www.themoviedb.org/list/118052
Reply by Phasmophobia
on March 31, 2017 at 1:28 PM
I'll have to check this one out! Frankenstein is one of my favorites, and seeing that this is another Whale picture, I have high hopes!
Reply by genplant29
on November 1, 2017 at 5:32 AM
This movie's new deluxe 4K restoration, by the Cohen Media Group, looks fantastic! TCM aired the newly restored version for the first time last night and it's a huge improvement over the KINO release of the 1990s. The print now looks actually new again, with beautiful clear and crisp picture quality.
Reply by lima-2
on April 8, 2023 at 11:23 PM
I totally missed the TCM airing from 2017. I don't know if TCM re-played it since then, but it was on Svengoolie tonight. Even with his silly shtick thrown in, between the commercial breaks, it was everything genplant29 wrote about it, and more. Obviously released pre-code, especially with some of the (then) sophisticated and suggestive dialog, and stunning visuals of the lovely and enchanting Gloria Stuart and Lillian Bond. Brilliant!
Reply by lima-2
on April 10, 2023 at 7:27 AM
SPOILER ALERT:
I couldn't resist this short addendum. I found the the fight scene between Boris Karloff and Raymond Massey unintentionally humorous given the latter's performance twelve years later in 1944's "Arsenic and Old Lace" :-)
Reply by genplant29
on April 10, 2023 at 8:23 AM
About that fight: Is it just me who thinks it looks like Morgan is headless when the lamp gets thrown at him and he falls down the steps? That shot always gets my attention!
Reply by lima-2
on April 10, 2023 at 9:40 AM
Oh yes! When the lamp first hits him at the top of the stairs, it looks like a headless body. It's hard to tell as he's rolling down the stairs, but at the bottom, he has his head again.
Reply by genplant29
on April 10, 2023 at 9:59 AM
I wonder whether it was a stuntman with their head concealed or a stuffed dummy that got knocked down the stairs.
Reply by lima-2
on April 12, 2023 at 8:33 AM
I'm not sure this link will work here. I found a youtube copy of the film. At 40:47 the lamp is thrown. The scene happens so fast, it's hard to tell if it's a stuntman or a stuffed dummy.
https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=mcafee&ei=UTF-8&p=the+old+dark+house&type=E211US0G0#id=1&vid=8090b9058f889a17aa72b5f5c6f6ec38&action=click
Reply by bratface
on April 12, 2023 at 7:35 PM
Here it is right before the lamp throw. It just looks like his head was thrown back by the lamp hitting him, but you can see as he falls down the stairs that he definitely still has a head.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QON5i4GQ7ho