The "old dark house" movie is a forgotten art. The reading of the dead patriarch's will, the characters' side glances to one another with devious intentions in mind, it's understandable that this kind of film was made only for 30s-40s audiences. Black and white suited this kind of film that often entailed a huge twist in the last five minutes. So one can only assume that the pre-code "The Old Dark House" (not to be confused with William Castle's 1963 Dick Lester homage) is exactly that. Kind of yes and kind of no.
Adapted from Benighted by English author and playwright J.B. Priestley, a car full of travelers find their vehicle unable to start in a violent rainstorm. The closest shelter they end up finding is the Femm estate somewhere in a secluded corner of Wales. What they end up walking in on isn't necessarily supernatural or anything expected of the genre, but entirely human. Horace Femm (Ernest Thesiger) seems relatively sane despite a paranoia of being caught by the cops for a real or imagined reason. His sister, Rebecca (Eva Moore), is a deaf yet hostile religious fanatic and another brother, Saul (Brember Willis) is a pyromaniac and far more insane than either sibling. Did we fail to mention he is also not allowed out of his caged room? Along with this strange family includes a very old bedridden father and the butler, the lustful but mute Morgan (Boris Karloff, of course).
Slowly becoming even more uncomfortable with their surroundings, husband and wife Philip and Margaret Waverton (Raymond Massey, "Arsenic and Old Lace") (Gloria Stuart, "Titanic"), Roger Penderel (Melvyn Douglas, "Ninotchka"), Gladys DuCane Perkins (Lillian Bond) and the show stopping Charles Laughton ("The Hunchback of Notre Dame") as Sir William Porterhouse in a role Oscar Wilde would find genius, just try to make the best of things as they wait for the rain to relent. The Wavertons discover Patriarch Femm, Penderel and Gladys fall in love despite the fact she is dating Porterhouse who takes the rejection surprisingly well. The night is not without danger, of course, as Margaret is pursued by the drunk Morgan and Penderel interacts with a dangerous but quite humorous Saul.
That is the strange thing about this movie, it's darkly humorous in a time dark humor was not often scripted. The situational humor, I think, translates well to today. "Have a potato" is one of the better known lines along with "It's only gin, you know. Only gin. I like gin" and unable to translate Morgan's muteness, "Even Welsh ought not to sound like that!" But what makes it scary, outside of the elements and shadows, is Karloff's natural presence even with Bela Lugosi's facial hair artist from "Murders of the Rue Morgue." Finally out of The Creature's makeup after the release of 1931's Frankenstein (also directed by Whale), this muteness translates as something scarier than a man slathered up in green colored collodion. Being mute and drunk heightens things as his actions show Morgan might not like his job all that much in releasing Saul from his bolted room. "Sometimes he drinks heavily," Horace explains to the visitors, "A night like this will set him going and once he's drunk, he's rather dangerous."
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