Dorothy McGuire plays Helen, a mute maid in the Victorian mansion owned by the ailing, bed-bound Ethel Barrymore. It's never a good time to be mute, but this is a particularly bad period because someone is going around in the nearby town and killing young women with imperfections. The constable comes around to warn that the clues seem to point to Barrymore's mansion, so look out.
There are plenty of people in the mansion to look out for. There are Barrymore's two sons -- the older professor, George Brent, and the young cocky womanizer, Gordon Oliver. There's the ravishing Rhonda Fleming, of whom Oliver remarks, "I never realized your hands were so strong." There's the hefty, bitter nurse, Sara Allgood, who never has a good word for anybody. There's Elsa Lanchester as a charwoman who spends most of her time dead drunk or planning to get so. There's her husband, Rhys Williams, uncouth, unkempt, menacing. And then there's Barrymore's doctor, Kent Smith, who falls in love with McGuire, while she reciprocates. Yes, plenty to go around. This is a big mansion.
It's a NEAT mansion too, come to think of it. Daryll Silvera was the set dresser and he seems to have gotten everything just right -- the ugly portraits on the walls, the overstuffed furniture, the kerosene lamps, the ugly kitchens, the cobweb-ridden cellar, the potted palms, the elaborately curved dark wood of the paneling and the artfully gnarled staircase. It's even better when there's an electrical storm raging outside and the wind blows out the candles.
We soon conclude that someone in the house is doing all these murders -- but which one of them? Certainly not McGuire. She's the requisite woman-in-jeopardy. Ethel Barrymore is glum and seems to be hiding something, but she's bed-bound. (Or is she?) The professor? He's aloof, true, but he reacts with sensible concern to portentous news. There's the vain and imperious Rhonda Fleming, but she's eliminated as a suspect simply by means of transition to victimhood. The arrogant younger son, then? Much too obvious. Ditto for Rhys Williams and, unless she's faking it, the bibulous Elsa Lanchester.
Well, how about Kent Smith, as Dr. Parry? Oh, he LOOKS benign enough, placid of countenance, pacific of demeanor, soothing of voice. But at one point, he tells the younger brother that he'd like to break his neck. Is that a hint of suppressed violence? Probably not. Kent Smith is the long-suffering husband of Simone Simon in "The Cat People." His specialty is passivity. He could never kill anybody. Besides, he's a Harvard man and it would be rude.
When this film was released, it was accompanied in advertisements by a warning that young people shouldn't attend. They might be too frightened. Today, that should give us quite a laugh. It's a dark and brooding murder mystery set in an old house and although there's a good deal of suspense, there is no violence to speak of. Nicely atmospheric film, though I don't know that that would appeal to some in today's audience who would be impatiently waiting for the ax to appear.
