The Dark House Overlooking the Cliff

****/****
2019 has been somewhat different than recent years. Been giving some often overlooked classics some rub this year. Granted, Val Lewton and his collaborators at RKO just remains on the mind when I watch this. It isn't just about mood and atmosphere. It isn't just about what might be in the dark, in the shadows. The disquiet, the underlying secrets that should eventually surface. There is painterly movements, art in that B&W, intensity awakened by the slight light that penetrates the night. In The Uninvited (1944), Lewis Allen and his team at Paramount craft a film just as alive and aesthetically rich as Lewton and his low budget artists who built a small but valuable and rewarding (and timeless) series of films that stand as a class above the rest in the 40s. And this is a cast Allen has, as the ole saying goes, an embarrassment of riches...Milland, Hussey, Russell, and Napier. And we also have the stern and yet fragile Crisp as the grandfather of Russell (never more beautiful or radiant) and a magnificent Cornelia Skinner as a mental hospital--sorry, a place of rest for "guests"--administrater who probably should check in herself. Skinner is obsessed and (I think was) in love with Russell's supposed mother, Crisp's daughter, who went over a cliff under mysterious circumstances, as her office has this gigantic portrait of Mary. Milland, concert pianist and critic, with Hussey as his sister, buy a haunted house from Crisp. Spirits, two with different interests in Russell, restlessly haunt the house for their own reasons. One seems hell-bent on her taking a header off the cliff, another sobs uncontrollably often until dawn breaks, mourning a secret Russell has yet to learn. Milland, who falls in love with Russell and vice versa, and Hussey, with help from village doc, Napier (of Batman), will get answers. Including a seance and Ouija board, possession and a ghostly apparition, this film actually has supernatural that serves as evidence, a difference that separates it from Lewton's ilk.

The sense of humor and just general likeability and winsome chemistry between the foursome I can't put over enough. Milland has never been more loveable. Hussey and her charming personality can't be understated. Napier and his intellect, playing off the leads as the doc with good sarcasm and wit, is the underrated actor of the cast. And the additional part of the story regarding Carmel, a maid who may be closer to Russell than any of the cast realizes gives the film a great twist at the end.