The Woman in White **** (1948, Eleanor Parker, Sydney Greenstreet, Gig Young, Alexis Smith, Agnes Moorehead) – Classic Movie Review 2175

Director Peter Godfrey’s 1948 film version of Wilkie Collins’s famous classic Gothic novel The Woman in White is a rich and thoroughly enjoyable entertainment. At its centre, Sydney Greenstreet gives an enormously compelling, masterly villainous tour-de-force performance as the evil Count Fosco, who plans to kill twin sisters Laura Fairlie and Ann Catherick (both played by Eleanor Parker) for their fortune.

Sydney Greenstreet.

In the story, young painter Walter Hartright (Gig Young) is hired to give art lessons to the beautiful and wealthy Laura Fairlie on an English estate where, in the forest, he meets Ann Catherick, a strange young woman dressed in a white cloak, who bears a striking resemblance to Laura. Fosco is plotting to have Laura marry Sir Percival Glyde (John Emery) for her inheritance. The Count also has plans for Laura’s beautiful cousin Marian Halcomb (Alexis Smith), to whom Hartright is drawn.

This superb story is served up with an expert screenplay by Stephen Morehouse Avery and lashings of nightmarish atmosphere in Carl E Guthrie’s moody black and white cinematography.

Gig Young and Alexis Smith are well cast and effective, and there is one other outstanding performance – from Agnes Moorehead, playing Greenstreet’s wife, Countess Fosco. John Abbott is also amusing as Laura’s eccentric, hypochondriac and mentally unbalanced invalid uncle, Fairlie.

By contrast, Peter Godfrey’s direction and some of the other support cast playing let the side down a bit by being a little on the ordinary side, and it is a shame that in this version the story rather fizzles out without a satisfying climax. And where was Greenstreet’s regular co-star Peter Lorre when he would be ideal here? Nevertheless, with Greensteet and Moorehead’s brilliant Fosco duo, this is a little vintage treat.

Agnes Moorehead.

Also in the cast are Curt Bois, John Emery, Emma Dunn, Matthew Boulton, Clifford Brooke, Barry Bernard, Anita Sharp-Bolster, Harold De Becker, John Goldsworthy, Randy Hairston, Creighton Hale, Crauford Kent, Connie Leon, Melody Lichtenfeld, Edgar Norton, Hilda Plowright, Mike Ryan and Frederick Worlock.

It was filmed in 1946 but not released until 1948.

There is also a brilliant 1982 TV mini-series version of The Woman in White with Alan Badel as Count Fosco and a good 1997 TV movie with Simon Callow in the role.

Eleanor Parker.

Eleanor Parker died on December 9 2013, aged 91.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2175

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Alexis Smith.

Gig Young.