The Spiral Staircase (1946)
A beautifully stylish piece of Gothic horror. Surely an influence on Dario Argento with it's fantastic tracking shots and avant garde photography. The Spiral Staircase is a Giallo movie twenty years before the Italians decided to make them.
The film features a black gloved killer who murders young disabled women. Helen a young mute girl who works as a live-in companion for a wealthy bed ridden woman fears that she will be the next victim and the killer could already be in the house.
The cast featuring Dorothy McGuire, George Brent, Elsa Lanchester and Ethel Barrymore is uniformly superb, especially McGuire who goes the whole film without dialogue, having to convey her thoughts and fears through other means.
The house itself, a large many bed roomed almost palatial affair is one of the "stars" of the film. Shadowy, cavernous and creepily eerie, the cinematography by Nicholas Musuraca, under the direction of Robert Siodmak brings the place to life giving it an almost foreboding personality in it's own right.
All in all, The Spiral Staircase is a terrific example of suspenseful Gothic noir which is guaranteed to keep you guessing right to the very end.
Highly recommended.
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