The Spiral Staircase **** (1946, Dorothy McGuire, Ethel Barrymore, George Brent) – Classic Movie Review 2277

Robert Siodmak’s 1946 psychological suspense thriller The Spiral Staircase is smooth, tense and gripping. 

Director Robert Siodmak’s suspenseful 1946 psychological thriller The Spiral Staircase is smoothly done, tense and gripping. It is based on the 1933 mystery novel Some Must Watch by Welsh author Ethel Lina White, the author of The Wheel Spins which became The Lady Vanishes (1938) and Her Heart in Her Throat which became The Unseen (1945). All three movies ditched her titles, how unlucky is that!

It motors on Siodmak’s briskly paced, well-judged atmospheric direction and a riveting star performance by the now all-too-little-known Dorothy McGuire as Helen Capel, a young woman pathologically mute since the death of her parents when she was a child. She takes a job as a servant working in the creepy household of wealthy, bedridden Mrs Emma Warren (Ethel Barrymore) in New England in 1916. Her job is as a live-in companion for the ailing matriarch.

However, Helen learns that a mysterious vicious serial killer who hates women with afflictions is picking off such young girls around town, and she fears she may be next. 

Mrs Warren’s son and stepson – professor Albert Warren (George Brent) and the cheeky, womanising Steve (Gordon Oliver) – also live in the family mansion, along with her verbally abused nurse (Sara Allgood), a secretary, a handyman and his wife, and a housekeeper with a taste for brandy.

Naturally, old Mrs Warren becomes concerned for the life of deaf-mute Helen when the rash of murders of women with afflictions hits the neighbourhood. Mrs Warren begs her doctor, Dr Parry (Kent Smith), to take Helen away for safety – but then another one of the murders occurs inside the mansion.

Mel Dinelli’s eerie, taut screenplay, Nicholas Musuraca’s moody cinematography, Roy Webb’s score, Dore Schary’s production and Siodmak’s breathlessly pacey direction all add up to the movie’s enormous success. Ethel Barrymore received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, the film’s outstanding turn.

Also in the stellar cast are Rhys Williams, Rhonda Fleming, James Bell, Elsa Lanchester, Ellen Corby and Richard Tyler.

It was remade for a 1962 television adaptation, in 1975 for the cinema as The Spiral Staircase with Jacqueline Bisset and Christopher Plummer, and again in 2000 for cable TV with Nicollette Sheridan, Judd Nelson, Alex McArthur and Debbe Dunning.

The novel was adapted for a radio production starring Helen Hayes before reaching the screen. The film earned the RKO studio a handsome profit of $885,000.

Dorothy McGuire (June 14, 1916 – September 13, 2001) was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for Gentleman’s Agreement (1947) and won the National Board of Review Award for Best Actress for Friendly Persuasion (1956). She starred as the mother in Swiss Family Robinson (1960).

Ethel Barrymore (August 15, 1879 – June 18, 1959) received four nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, winning for None but the Lonely Heart (1944). She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for The Spiral Staircase (1946), Alfred Hitchcock’s The Paradine Case (1947) and Pinky (1949).

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2277

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