The Uninvited (1944)

• Year: 1944
• Released: 24 Feb 1944
• Country: United States
• Adwords: Nominated for 1 Oscar. 1 nomination total
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037415/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/The_Uninvited
• Metacritics: https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-uninvited
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: English, Spanish
• MPA Rating: Passed
• Genre: Fantasy, Horror, Mystery
• Runtime: 99 min
• Writer: Dodie Smith, Frank Partos, Dorothy Macardle
• Director: Lewis Allen
• Cast: Ray Milland, Ruth Hussey, Donald Crisp
• Keywords: based on novel or book, sibling relationship, doctor, haunted house, spirit,

	7.2/10
	18% – Audience

The Uninvited Storyline

Commander Beech is more than happy to sell Wynward House, a cliff-side manor outside of Biddlecombe on the south coast of England, to Londoners, brother and sister Roderick and Pamela Fitzgerald, who want to use it as their primary residence. Commander Beech, who sells it to them for a mere fraction of its market value, is up front that the last tenants he had in the house moved out because of the proverbial bumps they continually heard in the night. The sale is much to the dismay of the Commander’s twenty year old maternal granddaughter, Stella Meredith, her long deceased parents to who the house originally belonged. Despite her mother, Mary Meredith, having died from falling off the cliffs when Stella was three when she herself last lived there, Stella has a strong emotional bond to the house as it is one of the last connections she has to her parents. After the sale, the Commander is less than cordial to the Fitzgeralds, with who he forbids Stella to associate, regardless of Stella and Rick’s increasing friendship which blossoms into a romance. Rick and Pam also begin to hear those bumps in the night – most specifically a woman’s wailing – and have an especially cold emotional feeling whenever in the house’s ocean-view studio. With the help of the local doctor Dr. Scott, they begin to wonder if the rumors of Mary and/or a Spanish gypsy named Carmel (Mr. Meredith’s supposed mistress) haunting the house – most specifically the studio – are indeed true, which the Commander believes places Stella in harm’s way if she is ever to enter the house. So that Rick, Stella and Pamela can live in peace, they decide to do whatever they can to discover the truth. What they don’t know is that the Commander and an old friend of Mary’s, Miss Holloway, know more than they divulge.

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The Uninvited Movie Reviews

Rivals in Life and Death

In 1937, the composer and music critic Roderick Fitzgerald (Ray Milland) and his sister Pamela Fitzgerald (Ruth Hussey) are spending a holiday on the English coast. When their dog chases a squirrel, they need to break in an abandoned manor named Windward House and Pamela immediately falls in love with the real state and convinces her brother to invest his savings purchasing the house.

They seek out the owner, Commander Beech (Donald Crisp), who lives with his twenty year-old granddaughter Stella Meredith (Gail Russell) far from the house, and he accepts their offer and sells the house for a very low price. Soon Roderick and Pamela move to the Windward House and he and Stella falls in love with each other. Roderick and Pamela also discover that the house is haunted and in Roderick’s studio they feel a chill and near dawn they overhear uncanny sobs of a woman. They investigate and learn that a tragedy happened in the manor: Stella’s father had an affair with a Spanish model and her mother died falling of the rocky coast and the model died of pneumonia. They also discover that the house is haunted by two ghosts, one of them evil and the other one trying to protect Stella.

“The Uninvited” is a creepy ghost story, with a great performances and a good story. The mystery is predictable and is not difficult to guess who the evil ghost is, but the movie has many scenes that startle the viewer and is supported by a magnificent cinematography in black and white. In accordance with a documentary about “The Uninvited”, Gail Russell was a shy actress and her personality helped her in her performance since she was really scared. The serenade “To Stella by Starlight”, by Victor Young, is another plus of this movie. Further, “The Uninvited” is the first Hollywood movie to take ghosts seriously since until this date this theme was explored in comedies. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): “O Solar das Almas Perdidas” (“The Manor of the Lost Souls”)

While I am no fan of ghost stories, the acting was very nice and the mystery aspect pretty enjoyable.

I must let you know up front that I am not a huge fan of films about ghosts. I just don’t normally find them very interesting. However, I like Ray Milland and will watch him in most anything–even his really bad films like “Frogs” or “The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant” (yuck). And, I was happy to see that while this wasn’t exactly my cup of tea, it was a very good film.

Milland and his sister (Ruth Hussey) happen upon a neat looking old mansion and decide, VERY IMPULSIVELY, to buy it. The owner (Donald Crisp) does not live there and he acts a big cagey about the house’s history. What he doesn’t tell Milland is that the house has two annoying habits–it screams and cries at night AND there is some strange power in the house that appears to be trying to kill Crisp’s granddaughter! Perhaps this is what prompted the recent Full Disclosure laws in the States! Not surprisingly, Milland and Hussey don’t like the screaming and crying. But it gets a lot worse when Milland starts seeing Crisp’s granddaughter (Gail Russell). And, when Russell comes to the house, mysterious forces try to get her to walk off a cliff! Much of the rest of the movie consists of Milland and Hussey trying to work through this mystery–with the help of a nice country doctor (Alan Napier). And, by the end, they come up with a plausible but bizarre answer to this crazy mystery.

As I said before, the acting is very good–the best aspect of the film. And, the film is pretty engaging–even if the solution to the problem seems a bit far-fetched. Well worth seeing.

Ghosts Want No Living Folks In Their House Of The Dead

The Uninvited in this case are brother and sister Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey who take a seaside house to let in England. Someone should have told them that the place was haunted, by two ghosts in fact. But if they had known that, they and the audience looking in would have missed one of the great Gothic horror films of all time.

Two women who really had it in for each other in life are continuing their feud into the next world with it spilling into this world. The object of their hatred is Gail Russell. She’s the child of one of them who the other hates with a passion. It was at this house where one of them fell to her death off a cliff into the ocean and the other died of pneumonia.

Russell lives now with her grandfather Donald Crisp and they own the property where Milland and Hussey are staying. Bit by bit both are drawn into the mystery surrounding where they’re living. They truly were not invited by one of the ghosts who does her utmost to get rid of them as well as frighten Russell to death.

The haunting cinematography sets the gloomy mood for The Uninvited and small wonder it got an Academy Award nomination for black and white cinematography. What I can’t figure out is how Victor Young’s score and theme for this film did not get nominated in that category. It was so popular that two years later Ned Washington gave the theme lyrics and it became a hit all over again as Stella By Starlight.

Acting honors go particularly to Cornelia Otis Skinner who did most of her work on stage both as performer and author. Her own autobiography Our Hearts Were Young And Gay had been filmed by Paramount and I guess she figured she owed the studio some work. She really made it count as the sinister figure who probably had a same sex crush on one of the ghosts when she was alive and said ghost gets her to do some evil bidding. Skinner will really creep you out with her performance.

Over 65 years after it first came out The Uninvited has not lost one ounce of shock value. Don’t miss it if you’re a fan of Gothic horror it’s a must see.