I just finished watching the 1944 movie The Uninvited on TCM for the umpteenth time. It reaffirmed my conviction that it’s one of the best supernatural horror pictures on film.
One of the earliest movies to treat haunting as a serious subject, it has gorgeous black and white cinematography, a score that has taken on a life of its own, and a stunningly good cast. Its principals weare mostly performers who were supporting players in A movies. Ray Milland (frequently a second lead at this point in his career), Ruth Hussey, the tragic Gail Russell. The supporting cast included distinguished stage performers including Cornelia Otis Skinner, Barbara Everest, and Dorothy Stickney who practically never left Broadway from 1926 to 1960 (she was married to Howard Lindsay). It also features Donald Crisp, an important actor and director from the silent era, and Alan Napier in what was probably his meatiest role in the movies. He’s probably best remembered today as Alfred in the Batman television program but he was capable of considerably more.
I’m not alone in singling The Uninvited out for praise. Martin Scorsese has characterized it as one of the greatest horror movies of all time and Guillermo del Toro has given it similar praise.
The Uninvited is largely a ghost story without ghosts, indeed, that was its original conception. The studio insisted that some ghost sightings be added and a special effects shimmery protoplasmy ghost was added to two scenes near the end after the movie had been cut. They add nothing to the movie and could easily be edited out.
This movie belongs to a relatively small subgenre of monster movies with no monsters that includes Jacques Tourneur’s I Walked With a Zombie, Cat People, and Curse of the Demon. M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs comes pretty close. The alien invaders who appear in it could easily be edited out and IMO they actually detract from the movie.
If you get a chance to catch The Uninvited on TV or, even better, on the big screen and you’re a film buff, check it out.
