The Spiral Staircase (1946)

• Year: 1946
• Released: 07 Feb 1946
• Country: United States
• Adwords: Nominated for 1 Oscar. 2 nominations total
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038975/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_spiral_staircase
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: English
• MPA Rating: Approved
• Genre: Drama, Horror, Mystery
• Runtime: 83 min
• Writer: Mel Dinelli, Ethel Lina White
• Director: Robert Siodmak
• Cast: Dorothy McGuire, George Brent, Ethel Barrymore
• Keywords: gothic, proto-slasher, staircase, spiral staircase,

7.3/10

The Spiral Staircase Storyline

In the beginning of the Twentieth Century, a serial-killer is terrorizing a small town, killing women with imperfections. In the Warren manor, the mute servant Helen nurses Mrs. Warren who is terminal in bed. The newcomer Dr. Parry falls in love for Helen and has the intention to take her to specialists in Boston for treatment for recovering her voice and marry her. When the reckless Steve Warren arrives from Europe, he stays in the mansion with his mother and his stepbrother Professor Albert Warren and has a brief affair with Albert’s assistant Blanche. When a crippled woman is killed in the town, Mrs. Warren advises Helen to leave the house immediately since she is in danger. When a murder occurs in the mansion, Helen does not know who is trustful to help her to call Dr. Parry to rescue her.

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The Spiral Staircase Movie Reviews

A great sleeper film–and not to be missed by lovers of suspense

When I picked up the Leonard Maltin Guide, it compared this film to a Hitchcock suspense and so I thought I’d give it a try. In many ways, though, I liked this film much more than many of Hitchcock’s 1940s films. It was far more suspenseful and well-written than I’d expected and I found myself really getting sucked into the film.

Dorothy McGuire plays a mute who cannot talk because of a hysterical reaction to a trauma she experienced as a child. Despite being unable to talk, she seems very well-liked by those around her because she is a fundamentally decent person. However, some of these friends are terribly concerned for her, as an at-large maniac has just recently murdered three people–seemingly because they had some disability. In particular, a nice doctor (Kent Smith) and her employer (Ethel Barrymore) urge her to move out of town. In addition, Smith wants to take her to Boston to have a specialist see her about her inability to speak.

Throughout the film, excellent camera-work (with lots of great angles and shadows), music, direction and writing serve to create a lot of believable tension and suspense. About the only possible negative is that because there is a relatively small cast, it isn’t all that hard to guess which one is the maniac–though I must say this was still handled quite well. A top-notch movie that has somehow gotten overlooked–it’s every bit as good or better as such contemporary Hitchcock films as SHADOW OF A DOUBT, ROPE or THE SABOTEUR.

Long On Atmosphere

It’s 1916 and a rash of women being killed who are ‘imperfect’ in the eyes of the killer whomever it is have both Dr. Kent Smith and bedridden dowager Ethel Barrymore concerned for the life of Dorothy McGuire, a beautiful, but mute servant girl in her house.

There’s not much mystery to this film, it’s not hard to guess the identity of the perpetrator, given the limited number in the cast. But The Spiral Staircase is one of the most atmospheric films ever done. Director Robert Siodmark made terrific use of the Victorian era set of the Warren house where 90% of the film is done. The centerpiece of course being The Spiral Staircase.

Two years before a deaf mute act won Jane Wyman an Academy Award, a lot of people, me included, felt Dorothy McGuire should have at least gotten a nomination for her role. She conveys so much in her portrayal, the meekness of her character and the gradual overwhelming fear that takes over her as she senses danger. Worse even when she fixes on the wrong individual as her menace.

Ethel Barrymore got an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress as the crotchety old woman who was in McGuire’s keeping. But Ethel had won the same Oscar back in 1944 for None But The Lonely Heart. She lost in the finals to Anne Baxter for The Razor’s Edge.

George Brent, Gordon Oliver, Rhys Williams, Rhonda Fleming, and Elsa Lanchester round out a good cast in one of the best atmospheric thrillers ever put on film.

Familiar, but highly atmospheric

THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE is one of the best known in the “old dark house” genre. These films typically feature a disparate group of characters who inevitably find themselves alone and trapped within a huge, rambling and spooky old house on the night of a storm, with a killer amongst them. What’s notable about this outing is just how stylish it is: the story is nothing special, but the style makes it.

The story features a black-gloved killer (complete with POV shots) who hides in wardrobes and stalks his young, female victims and strangles them. In one of the movie’s most infamous shots, the viewer sees a victim from the killer’s point of view, and she’s missing her mouth; symptomatic of his disturbed mind, and highly eerie with it. The whodunit aspect of the storyline is played up strongly, with some red herrings thrown into the mix, although it’s pretty easy for a modern viewer to guess the identity of the murderer.

THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE features some decent performances, particularly from Dorothy McGuire, playing (unusually) a leading role as a mute. That the viewer becomes accustomed to her muteness and, eventually, even forgets about it is testament to her performance. Elsewhere in the cast, there’s a barnstorming turn from grand old dame Ethel Barrymore who rules the roost from her deathbed, and a nicely comic performance from the BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN herself, Elsa Lanchester, as a drunk cook.

In the end, the film works because of the visual flourishes. As in a film noir, there’s a lot of creeping about in the shadows, and silhouettes of various things and people play a big part. The emphasis on a deranged killer is a neat precursor to the later gialli and slasher films of the ’70s and ’80s, and there’s little padding on the bare bones of the narrative. It’s a good ‘un.