The Uninvited (1944)

Lewis Allen's The Uninvited is one of the best little horror stories ever filmed, and a movie that you'll be lucky if you ever get to see. Like Under the Tuscan Sun, it involves an old deserted estate, and the dream someone has of fixing it up and starting a new life in the country far from the strife of the city. There the similarity ends, however. Roderick and Pamela Fitzgerald (Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey) discover Windwood Manor, a beautiful old mansion sitting empty on the sea coast. This brother and sister duo decide to purchase the home immediately and make it their own. Only one problem. The house isn't quite as deserted as they thought it was. Two women died there in less than fortunate circumstances. One is Mary Meredith, cold-hearted wife of the artist Llewellyn Meredith. The other is his model, Carmel Casada. As Roderick and Pamela try to unravel the mystery of these two ghosts - the former cold and threatening, the latter sad and weeping - Roderick falls in love with Stella Meredith (Gail Russell), the daughter of Llewellyn. Stella is also the granddaughter of the man who sold them the house, Commander Beech (Donald Crisp). He forbids Stella from seeing Roderick or going near Windwood Manor, much to the dismay of the young lovers. When Stella does finally show up there, she's at first filled with intense happiness as she smells the fragrance of mimosa. Later, she's scared out of her wits by the cold, angry spirit. Determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, Roderick, Pamela, and Dr. Scott (Allan Napier) go to see Miss Holloway (Cornelia Otis Skinner), who was a dear friend of Meredith's. Eventually, the trio solves the mystery and exorcises all of the spirits from Windwood Manor for good. Roderick and Stella will be married, as will Dr. Scott and Pamella.

The Uninvited is a wonderful old spine tingler, a tale of an angry presence that threatens the life of a sweet young woman and a beneficent presence that seeks to check the other. It's a story of love and revenge, of hatred and control, of repressed emotions and lesbianism. Yes, you read that correctly. Like Rebecca, there's a strongly hinted relationship between the cold Mary Meredith and the creepy Miss Holloway. Of course, such things could never be said outright back in the forties, so they had to be implied. This film implies quite a lot, enough to say that something more was going on between these two twisted women. I say "twisted," because that is the only was that homosexuality and lesbianism could be shown back in 1944. If a character's gender preference was called into question, they were by default evil. It's just the way it was. Like all of the really good suspense stories of the forties, it's shot in a deliciously moody style, with lots of deep shadows, even during the daylight hours. Windwood Manor is a creepy old pile of bricks, with its long, winding staircase and the reflections from the ocean cast onto the walls and ceiling, much like in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. There are some wonderfully funny scenes when Roderick takes Stella sailing and promptly gets sick, and when Roderick and Pamela visit the sanitarium of Miss Holloway. Like Cruella deVille, "if she doesn't scare you, no evil thing will." Finally, there's the ghost itself. Mary Meredith's disembodied presence was rendered with a wonderful special effect that revealed only enough of her spirit to scare you, but not enough of it to let you "see the strings." I've seen this movie a dozen times, and I still get shivers up and down my spine when that ghost appears on screen. That's how well it was done.

The Uninvited is rated G and is available in creepy black and white. It's only available in this country on VHS. This wonderful thriller has never been released on DVD in the United States. Why? I dunno. You'll have to ask Paramount about that one.

Rebecca (1940)

Imagine a movie in which the main character is never once named, in which the title character never once steps on screen, yet in which the title character's presence permeates every scene. That film is Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca. It's a ghost story, of sorts, but only because Rebecca is dead, and everyone else in the film is haunted by her memory. It's not a good memory. Not for most, anyway. Meet Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier). Wealthy, educated, cultured, from good old English stock. He's visiting the south of France, a lovely place. He's also about to kill himself. Kind of reminds one of "Richard Cory." Anyway, a young woman (Joan Fontaine) stops him from leaping from a cliff. He's rude to her. Later he apologizes. They spend time together. She starts to fall in love with him, even though she knows he's way above her social standing. He asks her to marry him in an off-handed way and she accepts. Don't you just love whirlwind romances. Everything is roses until Maxim takes his new bride back to his ancestral pile of bricks and mortar, Mandalay. It's a creepy, shadowy, Gothic travesty with vast rooms and soaring ceilings. It's haunted too. The maid, Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson), keeps the ghost of Rebecca alive. Rebecca's name is repeated over and over through the film, like a mantra. "Those belonged to Rebecca...Rebecca always wrote her letters in here...That's Rebecca's room...Tell me about Rebecca...." Often she's referred to as Mrs. de Winter, even though it's obvious that there's now a new Mrs. de Winter, and - Oh, look! - she's standing right here. The new Mrs. de Winter is overwhelmed by the house, by Mrs. Danvers, by Rebecca.

Mrs. de Winter wants to put on a ball at the house. Mrs. Danvers tricks her into wearing the same costume Rebecca wore at her last ball before she drowned in a boating accident. Maxim is furious when he sees her. She runs into Rebecca's room, which Mrs. Danvers has kept exactly the way it was before Rebecca's death. The room is a shrine. Mrs. Danvers tries to get Mrs. de Winter to take her own life. She almost does it too. But a flare fired out at sea breaks the spell. A ship has hit the rocks. All hands rush to the beach. Mrs. Danvers learns that divers, sent down to examine the hull of the stricken ship, have discovered Rebecca's sail boat. Rebecca's still in it. Maxim then tells his new wife the story of his previous wife, how she cuckolded him with just about everyone she could find. One night, in her private cottage, she told him she was pregnant and that the child wasn't his. She laughed at him. He struck her. She fell. She didn't get up. He put her body in the sail boat, went out to sea and scuttled it. Now there has to be an inquest, and all of it will come to light. Enter Jack Favell (George Sanders). He's Rebecca's favorite cousin. He's a car salesman who's getting tired of selling cars he can't afford to own. He'd like to move up in the world. From the things he says to the new Mrs. de Winter, you get the feeling that he and Rebecca were a little closer than cousins. More like kissing cousins. Favell makes threats. He has information about the accident. He'll tell, unless.... Well, you can guess.

Rebecca is a fascinating movie for many reasons. Adapted from the novel by Daphne de Maurier, the film explores female sexuality at a time before such things were discussed in polite society. Mrs. Danvers says, "Love was a game to [Rebecca]." Love, here, is a Hollywood euphemism for sex. It is hinted, though never stated, that Rebecca was having a lot of it with a lot of people, including Favell. Maybe even Mrs. Danvers. She's obsessed with the memory of Rebecca. She touches her belongings with gentle hands, like a lover's caress. Lesbianism - like homosexuality - was never shown back in the day. It was only inferred. Rebecca infers a lot. The movie was filmed in glorious black and white on the same stretch of California coastline where The Ghost and Mrs. Muir was filmed six years later. It's a gorgeously haunting area, perfectly suited to ghost stories. This is one of the best you'll ever see, although you won't ever see the ghost. And you won't ever learn Mrs. de Winter's real name. Cuz, in the end, the film keeps its secrets to itself.

Rebecca is rated G.