The House of the Seven Gables **** (1940, George Sanders, Margaret Lindsay, Vincent Price ) – Classic Movie Review 8,864

Universal Studios’ enjoyable 1940 black and white Gothic thriller melodrama film The House of the Seven Gables is based on the 1851 novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and stars George Sanders, Margaret Lindsay and Vincent Price.

‘AN ANCIENT HOUSE! A MURDER SECRET! A HIDDEN TREASURE!’

Director Joe May’s enjoyable 1940 Universal Studios black and white Gothic thriller melodrama film The House of the Seven Gables is based on the 1851 novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and stars George Sanders, Margaret Lindsay and Vincent Price.

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s sombre novel makes an equally grim film about wicked, greedy, bankrupt Jaffrey Pyncheon (George Sanders) getting his innocent brother Clifford (Vincent Price) jailed for supposedly killing their father, in an epic fight over their inheritance, the ancestral mansion Seven Gables.

Finally free after 20 years, Clifford (Price) comes after his fortune and his fiancée, Hepzibah (Margaret Lindsay), who has waited patiently all these years for his release. It also features Dick Foran as Holgrave and Nan Grey as Phoebe.

The experienced, appealing cast gives rousing, energetic turns, with the three main stars on excellent form. And there is a handsome, atmospheric production, stylishly photographed in Universal horror movie style by Milton R Krasner, and fine score, all helping to make up for some longueurs in Lester Cole and Harold Greene’s slightly shaky screenplay, much altered from the novel of course. But at its heart, The House of the Seven Gables tells a fascinating story, and rather well too.

Frank Skinner was an Oscar nominee for Best Original Score. Vincent Price sings ‘The Color of Your Eyes’ (1940) (music by Frank Skinner, lyrics by Ralph Freed).

Sanders apparently did not like the film, but that might have had to do with the problems of making it. It was supposed to cost $161,625, but it went two days over schedule, with the cast and crew working until 10 pm to finish it, and ended up costing $178,000.

Ah yes, much altered from the novel of course. The screenplay by Lester Cole makes Hepzibah (Margaret Lindsay) and Clifford (Vincent Price) lovers rather than brother and sister, and it ends with a double wedding. Also, Clifford is well aware of the true identity of Holgrave (Dick Foran) and the two are working together to settle the score with Jaffrey (George Sanders).

In 1933 Joe May (Joseph Otto Mandel, from Vienna) and many others working in the German film industry emigrated to the United States where he established himself as director, mainly for Universal Pictures and on B-movies. His most notable US works were Confession (1937, with Kay Francis, Basil Rathbone and Ian Hunter), The House of the Seven Gables and The Invisible Man Returns (1941), as well as two Dead End Kids films, You’re Not So Tough (1940) and Hit the Road (1941), and his last film Johnny Doesn’t Live Here Any More (1944).

Also in the cast are Alan Napier, Nan Grey, Cecil Kellaway, Dick Foran, Miles Mander, Harry Woods, Charles Trowbridge, Hugh Sothern, Edgar Norton, Gilbert Emery, Edward Brady, Hal Budlong, Caroline Cooke, Harry Cording, Kernan Cripps, Leigh de Lacey, Robert Dudley, Martin Faust, Margaret Fealy, Subyl Harris, Ellis Irving, P J Kelly, Colin Kenny, Jane Loofbourrow, Murdock MacQuarrie, Michael Mark, Nelson McDowell, Mira McKinney, Russ Powell, Jack C Smith, Harry Stubbs, and Claire Whitney.

The House of the Seven Gables was remade in 1967, and it is loosely adapted as one of the three stories in the 1963 film Twice-Told Tales, along with Rappaccini’s Daughter and Dr Heidegger’s Experiment, all with Vincent Price.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8,864

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