The Spiral Staircase
               
Director: Robert Siodmak
Year: 1946
Rating: 7.5
The first 20-minutes of this Gothic-noir with echoes of Hitchcockian suspense is pure cinema. Beautifully thought out in establishing the mood and plot going forward. The camera pans the street of a mix of cars and horse driven buggies indicating the time period and the small essence of the town. It then takes us inside a hotel where a room has been set aside to show moving pictures - silent ones hinting at the main motif of the story. The film The Kiss is being played with enthusiastic piano accompaniment. In the audience is Helen (Dorothy McGuire) looking on in wonder with tears in her eyes. Upstairs is a different scene as a young woman is dressing in her hotel room. She opens the closet to pick out a dress and then turns away. Then ever so slowly, the clothes are parted and an eye is staring at her - only the eye is visible in its menacing visage.



She is strangled to death - the police arrive - there have been three before. A serial killer. Who only kills women who have a physical defect. They tell Helen to go home quickly. She nods and makes her way as a thunderstorm is closing in. The doctor (Kent Smith) picks her up in his buggy but before he can take her home, he is told to see a sick person and lets her off. She walks through the woods, hears a rustling, hurries on, picks up a stick and rattles the iron fence just before the downpour begins. Inside she is greeted by the cook (Elsa Lanchester) who tells her that the elderly unwell Mrs. Warren wants to see her. It is a gloomy Victorian mansion that seethes with dread, winding stairs and candle-lit shadows.  A window has been opened that is blamed on the bulldog. Upstairs, Helen stops to look at herself in the mirror and the camera crawls over and there is that terrifying eye watching her - through POV the intruder sees her mouth covered over with fog. You see, Helen is a mute and you have a good sense where this film will be going.



The film is based on the 1933 novel, Some Must Watch, by British author Ethel Lina White - The Lady Vanishes and The Unseen were also based on her writings. The director (and the eye) is Robert Siodmak and his cinematographer is Nicholas Musuraca (Cat People, Out of the Past, The Seventh Victim) and the two of them create an atmosphere of unease, of evil lurking in this large house full of people that all seem out of place. Siodmak began his career in Germany and brings that experience to the shots and angles that are chosen. The rest of the film moves along though never quite captures the same brilliance as the beginning - till the frantic ending.



In the house is the professor (George Brent), his younger smirky sullen brother (Gordon Oliver), the beautiful secretary (Rhonda Fleming), the cook and her husband (Rhys Williams), the nurse (Sara Allgood), the mother and of course Helen who is there to help with the cleaning and helps take care of the sick mother. The mother is played by the great Ethel Barrymore who was nominated for an Oscar for her performance - though it is nearly all in bed - nearly.  The mother tells Helen - go, leave this house, it is evil. But the night is not over and it is pouring outside and where can she go.