The Old Dark House (1932)

This early talkie is best remembered for two things. First, it was the first post-Frankenstein James Whale movie featuring Boris Karloff, though the latter is made up so differently that an opening written paragraph tells us who he plays. Second, legal complications on distribution rights caused it to be lost for decades until Curtis Harrington, a director and friend of Whale, campaigned to find and restore it.

Karloff gets top billing but not the most screen time, let alone the most lines (he plays a mute again). Other notable actors include Melvyn Douglas, Raymond Massey, Gloria Stuart, and Charles Laughton, all of whom play relatively good and normal characters. The gist: Two parties with a total of five people get caught in a terrible storm on a mountain road and beg shelter at the titular house. Unlike in many such setups, there's nothing supernatural about the mansion; it just has unhinged residents. Some of whom have tendencies to unprovoked violence....

In the semi-fictional Gods and Monsters, Ian McKellen as Whale claims that Bride of Frankenstein was made to be funny for those who got it and scary for those who didn't. If the real Whale ever said that, I wouldn't know whether he was telling the truth or just trying to save face. With that in mind, I note that BoF is not listed as even partly a comedy on IMDb, whereas TODH gets the horror-comedy classification everywhere I look.

And why did I check so many places? Because if nobody had told me, I'd never have thought of it. I completely failed to register the comedy aspect -- not that I didn't try. "Let's see: We have Laughton, who's always a little amusing but not a ton of laughs (heh); we have an old woman playing an old man, which has potential for both humor and eerieness but isn't really going anywhere; we have the normal folk overreacting to awkward eccentrics who don't strike me as crazy.... Is that it?"

It reminds me of the so-called comic short stories I read of H.P. Lovecraft, intended as parody but, to me, indistinguishable from old-fashioned horror played straight. Maybe if I immersed myself in the works it parodies, I'd get the punchlines, but that sounds like more of a bother than it's worth.

And no, it doesn't work much better as plain horror. Characters rarely get in anything like mortal danger. There are few surprises. And the visuals, at least in this low restoration, leave a lot to be desired.

I suppose I should give the script credit for passing the Bechdel test. But unlike the last couple movies I reviewed, it is hardly feminist even for the time. The two good women rely entirely on the men for protection and never vice versa; the other woman is a rude, hyper-religious hag.

TODH enjoys a cult classic status, far outstripping its 1963 remake. For my part, I recommend (re)watching Arsenic and Old Lace if you want a black comedy, unless you have a posse right out of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" to help find the laughs. The best I can say about my own feelings for TODH is that it lasts only 72 minutes.