THE NEW SCHOOL

FILM SERIES 22: Program #6

July 23, 1975

An evening of Gothic Mystery and Melodrama

Curiously, the great Gothic writers - Bram Stoker, Sheridan LeFanu, Wilkie Collins - have been utilised but little by the screen. Usually it has been a case of taking their cornerstone novels (Dracula, Carmilla, The Woman in White), turning them into standardised British or Hollywood versions, and remaking them periodically - or, as in the case of The Moonstone, using it as the basis for a routine contemporary adaptation. Carmilla, never done very accurately (and its color-conscious writing just cried out for a faithful muted-color version) was at least a superb inspiration for Dreyer's Vampyr and Vadim's Blood and Roses before becoming a stock source a group of British horror films (Lust for a Vampire, The Vampire Lovers and others) that mixed sex and nudity along with standard vampiric terror. Tonight's two films, the best-known stories by Collins and LeFanu, represent the most elaborate and generally faithful attempts to transfer those Gothic classics to the screen.

Although far from unstinting in its production values - many of the sets have a cramped, budget-conscious look, and the exteriors are either skimpy or disguised standing sets - this Woman in White is nevertheless the most ambitious, and certainly the longest, of several screen versions. (It was also, thus far, the last, and all of the prior versions were British). A surprising number of people have asked for it to be included in our schedule, though whether from fond remembrances of the film, or interest in the property itself, was never indicated. It is, unfortunately, a disappointing film, but where it fails, Uncle Silas succeeds admirably, so the two do make a rather interesting comparison, quite apart from their common Gothic heritage.

Despite good if not spectacular production mountings, and a very good cast, what The Woman in White lacks most of all is style, both in the restrained writing, and in the even more restrained direction by Peter Godfrey, a comparative newcomer then who was being given some fairly important films by Warners, and tended to soft-pedal the potential in all of them. The Two Mrs. Carrolls came off best, but then it's difficult for any director to soft-pedal a Bogart-Stanwyck combination. It's as though everybody concerned respects The Woman in White as a property, but is afraid to recapture the full melodramatic flavor of the novel for fear of turning it into burlesque. Oddly enough, Tod Slaughter's 1940 British version, Crimes at the Dark House (which we ran a few seasons back) did aim at at least partial burlesque, and also succeeded in catching the rich melodrama of the original far better. The film is slow in starting, as if reluctant to get into the basic action, and although the second half is much livelier, that sober mien is still disconcerting. Sydney Greenstreet, magnificently cast as Fosco - Collins could almost have written the role for him - seems to take little joy in his villainy. Once in a while the Gutman chuckle and rhetoric come through, but it's a tame Fosco. John Abbott's overplaying is shameful, but that is as much Godfrey's fault as his. Like so many Victorian melodramas, incarceration in a madhouse is one of the key plot elements, and yet there is no sense of desperation to it, and Eleanor Parker, physically at least a good choice for a vulnerable heroine, seems to take it all in her stride. The dialogue veers uncomfortably from American modern phrases (such as "I wouldn't know") to passages (particularly the climactic wrap-up narration) taken straight from Collins. It's a worthwhile effort that just doesn't catch fire, but as such is a useful prelude to a film that does.

-- 10 Minute Intermission --

Although literary critics have always felt that LeFanu's best work was done in the short story field, and that most of his longer works were mediocre, there was never any division of opinion concerning Uncle Silas, which, though a novel, was considered his masterpiece. But the filmed Uncle Silas, the best screen version of any LeFanu work, has been strangely overlooked and dismissed, even though with its full-blooded style and marvellous sets, lighting and camerawork, it is something of a classic of filmed Grand Guignol. As the numerous artistic credits indicate, it was designed as a "prestige" feature in every sense of the word, and also as the first solo starring vehicle of one of the most important of the new Rank stars, Jean Simmons. Moreover, in England at least, it had a superbly chilling trailer which couldn't fail to excite advance interest. Yet reviews were quite tepid, most critics rating it almost as en eye-rolling burlesque, or as an overdone piece of claptrap. (These reviews may well have influenced the sober approach to The Woman in White, made the following year). Doubtless, in the wake of the serious Dickens adaptations, its lack of restraint may have seemed pronounced - but its manipulation of audience fears, its reliance on shock, and its first-rate use of the cut, the camera and the distorting lens for thrill effects, could hardly countenance a "restrained" approach. As with The Woman in White, its action and horror are saved for the last thirty minutes - but the style is there from the beginning. Despite Simmons' appealing performance and the film's great visual eloquence, it gained no reputation in England at all and was soon forgotten (and still is); its US release was delayed for many years, and then not even handled by Universal, Rank's normal US outlet. Those of you who don't know the film at all are in for a real treat; those of you who do will obviously know what to expect end will enjoy it anew.

A minor mystery exists concerning the director, who managed to avoid listing in any of the British reference books, and who is given no biographical coverage in any of the film's publicity. To my knowledge, the only other film he made was Intimate Relations, a lesser-budget adaptation of Cocteau's Les Parents Terribles. It's hard to believe that a talent could start off so auspiciously, and then vanish. For a while I thought there might be some Union-dictated legal reason why his real name could not be used, and that Charles Frank was in fact a nom-de-plume for a well-known director. But both Sidney Gilliatt and Terence Fisher, who were contemporaries of his as Rank directors have assured me that he did exist, that that was his real name, and that they had no idea whatever happened to him.

----- Wm. K. Everson -----