The Unseen

source: The Unseen

source: The Unseen

"The Unseen" is a story by Ethel Lina White that seems to have been strongly inspired by a famous story by Henry James. It tries to evoke the same mood and many plot elements are present in both stories. Gail Russell plays a rather bland character, a new governess for a weird household. How is it weird? Well, first, the man of the house (Jol McCrea) is incredibly detached from his children. Secondly, the little boy is really weird and is under the spell of his prior (and evil) governess. Can the bland lady manage to navigate both problems and live happily ever after? As I mentioned, the story seems much like a reworking of "The Turn of the Screw"...so much so that I wouldn't bother watching both film versions (the film version of "The Turn of the Screw" is "The Innocents")...and the latter is definitely better. This is because "The Innocents" is moodier, better written AND Gail Russell just looks lost and confused throughout most of the movie....it's clearly NOT one of her better performances.

Most mysteries in the 2000s lack either atmosphere or good writing. This film lacked only good writing. Hard to believe Raymond Chandler could write a turkey, and even more unbelievable that John Houseman, a true giant in film, could have been the producer. Joel McCrea never made a bad movie as far as I know; but this one is certainly near the bottom of his accomplishments, One of the problems of the films is its pacing; the movie moves at a snail's pace for an hour or so, and then does the hundred yard dash to tie up all the loose ends in the last ten minutes. I will not mention the ending, but it was rather unsatisfying. Interesting to see McCrea and Herbert Marshall (one of Bette Davis's favorite leading men in a film together. A watchable film, but killed by the annoying children, and having a haunted house next to a mansion. Please.

Lewis Allen brilliantly succeeded in his fantasy and horror movie "the uninvited" which avoided the paraphernalia of the genre: the threats were suggested, the ghosts were never shown ;the atmosphere,the noises created anguish , and it paved a reliable way to superior works such as Wise' s 'the haunting" (1963) "the unseen " is more of the same ,but it's less successful ; there's similarities with Henry James ' "turn of the screw " tranferred to the screen by Jack Clayton as "the innocents" (1961) starring Deborah Kerr ,the children are not unlike Miles and Flora. "The unseen" creates a disturbing atmosphere (helped by Gail Russell's superb eyes ) but the screenplay drags on and the denouement is finally rather disappointing ,considering the good ideas which promised more : the little girl's scrapbook with fairy tales (Snowwhite) pictures which ,unexpectedly,contains a news item depicting a murder in the house next door . The fans of the unfortunate Russell would not want to miss this one, but they should see "the night has a thousand eyes" (1948),based on a William Irish novel,where her eyes match the stars in the dark night.

Although he had been under contract for a number of years, Raymond Chandler still hadn't found his "write" niche at his home studio, Paramount. True, his assignment to "The Unseen" (1945), seemed ideal - at least on paper. Based on a book by Ethel Lina White (who wrote the original novels for both Hitchcock's Lady Vanishes and Siodmak's Spiral Staircase), the movie somehow ended up as more of a lightweight ghost story than mystery-suspense. Spooks were not Chandler's forte, but he was brought into the picture to give the supernatural proceedings a bit of rationality. Chandler did his best, but complained to all who'd listen that it was time the studio used his talents in the right direction. Finally, the contractee's voice was heard by studio management. Given the go-ahead for an original suspense thriller, Chandler set to work on "The Blue Dahlia" (1946). It's tempting to write that "The Unseen" was unseen, but that would not be true. The movie was reasonably successful. Not big money, mind you, but enough to keep the wheels turning!

A governess walks into a situation that tests her mettle. The father is cold and unfriendly and while she makes friends with the little girl, the boy immediately despises her. The pacing is weak and the plot rather stretched, but it keeps one's interest. There is some gaslighting going on, but mostly its a very basic mystery. The little boy is really quite good in his derisive role. Some of the significant events unfold too fast and we really don't understand why people keep coming and going.

Gail Russell becomes governess to Joel McCrea's two motherless children. McCrea is a moody fellow. He gets sleeping pills from neighborhood doctor Herbert Marshall, and says that his children were spoiled by their unseen grandmother. The girl, Nona Griffith, is a sweet little thing, but the boy, Richard Lyon, takes a dislike to Miss Russell, seems to have a lot of money, and makes phone calls he says he didn't. Miss Griffith also tries to keep secrets. The house is an old, gloomy, run-down place, and after midnight there are signs that there's some stranger there. It's an Old Dark House movie, and the unraveling of its mysteries make up the bulk of its length. Miss Russell goes through the movie with an expression of wide-eyed innocence that formed the basis of her star persona in this period. She stands in for the audience as a spectator to the disquieting behavior around her. McCrea shows that his distracted comedy shtick can be applied to drama as well. Despite Raymond Chandler being one of the screen writers of this movie, I thought it depended far more on the atmosphere of the movie than the substance of its plot. Director Lewis Allen and cinematographer John Seitz offer that in gobs, and the actors so their jobs well enough to provide a good movie, if the audience be willing. It's an efficient studio picture that kept me interested through the end.

I was excited to learn there was a follow up to one of my favorite scary movies, "The Uninvited." Too bad this movie doesn't come anywhere close to the mystery and charm of its predecessor. The film has such great potential, but all of the mysterious plot points revealed throughout the film add up to nothing in the end. For example, what is the point of including the previous governess in the film at all? Barney gets his orders to open the door and leave the elephant in the window as a signal that he's opened the door from the murderer. He's never given any other instructions or destructive orders that we know of, so what's the point of the phone calls, and what is the point of her showing up as the new housekeeper? It's pointless! Even worse, the center of the mystery is the murderer who on a nightly basis enters the house so he can access the boarded up house next door via the basement. Why? Because he is going to clean up the blood from the murder he committed several years before. It's a ridiculous motivation. He cares an awful lot about some old blood stains, but he doesn't seem to care much about exposing himself by murdering the old lady with the watch and the former governess.

Starting off on all the right notes, this mediocre reunion of director Lewis Allen and leading lady Gail Russell from "The Uninvited" is a frustrating misfire. Russell is hired by brooding widower Joel McCrea to look after his two rather bizarre children. There's a boarded up house next door where a nasty old man lived years before, leading to a bunch of strange goings on and ending up in murder. The film just gets odder as it goes on, bringing in a whole bunch of seemingly suspicious characters, causing nothing but more confusion. This is the type of script that seems pike a bunch of words on paper and no cohesive plot to tie everything together. Some of the characters have no real reason for being there in the first place, wasting such talented character players as Herbert Marshall, Elisabeth Risdon and Isobel Elsom, who should have been more involved in the structure of the plot, being the widow of the man who owned the abandoned house next door. What becomes clear right off is that the only thing that is unseen is a plot line, making this one of the true misfires of Hollywood in the 1940's, and perhaps the worst film of 1945.