My Top 10 Favorite Scary Movies: The Uninvited (1944)

Up until the 1940s spiritual apparitions, or rather ghosts, were never taken seriously. A dead Cary Grant and Constance Bennett mockingly tortured Roland Young in their invisible states (1937's "Topper") and in "The Cat and the Canary" (1939), Bob Hope found the antagonist behind what seemed to be a white-sheeted ploy. But as of February 1944, that all changed. Paramount and director Lewis Allen unleashed a new kind of horror film titled "The Uninvited" starring Ray Milland, Ruth Hussey and introducing a 20 year old Gail Russell. 

Siblings Roderick (Milland) and Pamela (Hussey) Fitzgerald, along with their dog, find themselves enraptured with a Cornwall estate while on holiday. But falling in love with Windward House only brings bumps and cries in the dead of night as well as the daughter of the original owners. "Rick" eventually falls in love "creating" a popular jazz standard popularly known as "Stella by Starlight." But Stella (Russell) is a haunted woman whenever in Windward, believing whatever she feels is her dead mother. But there are two women haunting the house, so which one is Stella's real mother?

The apparitions themselves are quite impressive for their age for being a last minute decision. "The studio was uncertain how to market it and decided to add some special effects [...] to exploit the film's supernatural premise. While the ectoplasmic apparitions are appropriately eerie and more subtle than any present day computer-generated effects, they were removed by the censors when the film was distributed in England and, in many cases, critics and moviegoers preferred that version because it was more suggestive and less obvious." ("The Uninvited (1944) - Articles - TCM.com") Being such a great movie, it would have been a perfect choice either way. The writer finds herself very surprised that the 2013 Criterion reissue did not even include both versions! The "ectoplasmic apparitions" work in giving off a feminine air, sheer and flowing, making the viewer believe that this must be what female "ghosts" look like!

While the story may come across a little dated and even subtly inspired by Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, if you are sensitive, this is a horror movie that will make you cry as a young girl discovers who her real mother is from the beyond.