Halloween’s not over: “The Old Dark House” (1932), Biography and Queer Theory

James Whale may be best known as the director of “Frankenstein” and “The Bride of Frankenstein”, but he also directed plenty of classics and well-received films outside the horror genre. He also lived openly as a gay man. I mention this because it has some bearing on how “The Old Dark House” can be viewed.

After “Frankenstein”, Universal wanted more of the same from the genre and from Whale. He had shot “The Impatient Maiden” in 1932, but it does not seem to have made much of a mark on cinema (Whale claimed he took the job to keep busy.) “The Old Dark House”, though, was where Whale could have some serous fun. 

On the surface, it’s a kitschy creeky, though not haunted in the strict sense, house story. Two sets of strangers seek safe haven in a remote manse populated with an eccentric family and their mute, possibly homicidal servant Morgan (played by Boris Karloff who was having a major spat with his soon to be ex Whale.) When I first watched it on a cruddy transfer from VHS, it was hardly pleasurable. 

The muddiness of the images I found distracting and the script came across as wheezy as the wind whistling through the woods during the storm on the night the tale takes place. Everyone went broad (very), I thought, and I could not square this with the finesse that Whale brought to so many of his other works.

Recently, since it is Halloween time and all, I thought I’d throw a Whale into the queue. I just saw “Bride…” a few years back, I know “Frankenstein” really well (really, really well; my first monster flick I saw at five! Thanks mom!) I considered “The Invisible Man” (a truly great film; Claude Raines was a genius) but I read a piece on “The Old Dark House” recently and it got me thinking that maybe I missed something. 

In 2017, the film was restored and released on DVD and is readily available for screening and it is a fine piece of work, indeed. Whale’s close-ups hone in on characters playing at various levels of caginess. The set-ups are angular and while uncredited cinematographer Arthur Edeson was probably just following Whale’s direction, the creepiness that seeps into a number of scenes, particularly on the staircase owes much to vertical framing and shooting from below.  The rich chiaroscuro emphasizes the utter weirdness of the Femm siblings, Horace (a hilarious and supremely funny Ernest Thesiger) and Rebecca, his selectively deaf and piously neurotic or neurotically pious sister played by Eva Moore who just kind of walks right in and off with the scene without half trying.

It is a <clears throat> dark and stormy night out there on the Welsh countryside with Philip Waverton at the wheel, his lovely wife Margaret at his side, and the most annoying passenger, Penderel in the back seat. Man, when I first saw this, I almost stopped watching, Melvyn Douglas as Penderel, a World War One vet for whom life holds no more allure is just unbearable. Raymond Massey as Waverton is bitchy and whiney and Gloria Stuart as Margaret is pitched somewhere between long-suffering and just as annoying as the boys.

Note that right out of the gate, we’re dealing three of the greatest actors of their generations. Younger audiences would hardly recognize Gloria here as being the same woman who narrates her story in “Titanic”. In any case, what these three pros were doing set a tone for the whole movie that revolves around dysfunction. By the time we meet the Femms (goddam, that name is too on point), it’s just one cascade of bitch session and discomfort after another, although, once Horace and Margaret have entered the scene, we realize that Philip, Margaret, and Penderel have nothing on the brother and sister team. 

Thesiger goes full queen in this and it’s delicious. “It’s only gin, you know. Only gin. I like gin.” Just read that to yourself and make it as campy as you possibly can and you have an excellent idea of just how great his line reading is. Horace goes from being fairly imposing to put-upon to “I am so over all this, we might as well drink” to outright twink later on, the film is worth it just for that.

Eva Moore matches him note for note in a deeper register; she has the unenviable task of being the Protestant scold who sees nothing redeeming in anyone or anything around her (she berates Margaret who’s soaked to the bone at one point and accompanies the younger woman to a room to change in, going on about the decay of physical beauty and finally pushes Margaret over the edge when puts a gnarled paw on Margaret’s clavicle, almost yelling at her that her flesh is “finer stuff, but it’ll rot, too!” Holy shit, Margaret Hamilton must have seen Moore’s performance here to crib from as the Wicked Witch a few years later.

But Horace saves his best for Margaret. Early on, when it’s pretty obvious that the Wavertons and Penderel are going to have to stay, Thesiger picks up a bouquet and declares, “my sister was on the point of arranging these flowers” and casually tosses them into a fire. 

Eventually, dinner is served - roast beef and potatoes and again, it’s Thesiger’s delivery of “have a potato” that should have you reeling. Do I sound like I had a good time watching this? Yes, yes, indeed I did.

“Camp” was not a word for describing this kind of storytelling at the time, but it is most assuredly what we have before us, expertly delivered by some of the most legendary talent of the early sound era. However, there’s more to the story(telling) than that.

Whale made it a point to hire an almost all gay cast for “The Bride of Frankenstein”. I think the idea was that, if Universal was going to make him go back to the well (he was tired of horror, by this point), he was going to hire his own friends and even his ex. Apparently, he also ensured that the gay subtext in “Bride” would be relatively transparent, but coded enough that it would still work as a more, um, straightforward story. In the work at hand, I don’t think Whale gave a shit and it makes for a funnier and frankly, more thrilling narrative than it otherwise would have been.

I should add that I haven’t read the J.B. Priestly story the film is based on, but knowing the Priestley I have read, something tells me, the source material may be just as layered.

In any case, the second couple arrives - Sir William Porterhouse played by an avuncular Charles Laughton to within a gnat’s eyebrow of caricature, and Lilian Bond as his companion Gladys DuCane (well, Perkins, later) who seems to be carrying the flag of the flapper alive - and this expands to another level of tension and working through a different kind of thuddingly annoying characterization. Until we get to know them. 

Here’s the thing: in each instance, Whale introduces the non-Femm family characters as broad types and then lets the actors find the hearts of the characters. As over the top as they are, we start to see shades of personality and nuance in performance that yields empathy from the viewer. It’s a tricky line to toe, but everyone does so expertly. 

Massey and Stuart find their footing early on and you can see the couple uniting to protect themselves against the Femm siblings. Melvyn Douglas’s Penderel moderates his near-assholery, as well, and the film starts to find its footing when Laughton and Bond show up and like a refrain, we cycle through the same process of getting to know these new people. Throughout the night, Morgan shows up to serve the meal or tend to other things and Karloff (who was reluctant to take on another mute monster role) has a similarly tricky bit to do; on the one hand, he’s supposed to be a brute, perhaps mentally challenged, and possibly with a criminal past. Additionally, Whale concentrates on Karloff gazing at Margaret/Gloria Stuart with what we initially assume to be desire, but might turn out to be contempt, as well. 

We discover that Lord Pemberton lives for money and crushing the people who laughed at him but is profoundly lonely and spends his money on and time with Gladys. She, in turn, later assures Penderel that it’s only companionship and she doesn’t service other needs. This adds to the more overt queering of the character. 

According to Gloria Stuart, the Brits on the set would take their tea together and exclude the Americans which made for a bit of discomfort. Additionally, she found Karloff insufferable and was openly feuding with Whale who, in turn, seemed to take some pleasure in humiliating his former leading man in front of everyone. 

Of course, it was among the Brits that formed a lavender circle. Whale, Thesiger, Karloff, and Laughton were the anchors of the narrative to which everyone else would react. Structurally, there is a shift in antagonists from Horace (relatively quickly) to Karloff as the central disruptor against which Massey and Douglass will eventually arm themselves. Before we get there, though, there are additional elements.

Penderel and Gladys find a meeting of minds and after Penderel has headed out into the still stormy night to fetch some whiskey, Gladys follows him and they have a heart to heart, billing and cooing and somehow sell the idea that these two characters could really have found a real connection. 

While that relationship is budding, the lights have gone out and Rebecca has bullied Horace into going upstairs to retrieve a lamp that he says is too heavy for him and would Philip go with him? Here, Thesiger is glorious, going from imperious to scheming to outright terrified of going any further up the stairs. He ducks into his own room, leaving Massey’s Waverton to head up to the dreaded second landing. In the meantime, he hears a peculiar sound from behind a heavily padlocked door. It’s a giggling that is either really disturbing or hilarious. In any case, Waverton heads back down but encounters Margaret who’s been creeped out pursued by an enraged Morgan. It’s been established that Morgan has started drinking and once he does, watch out! He’s a mean drunk, kids.

Pemberton had gone to help Rebecca close a window, leaving Margaret alone and that’s when the shit hit the fan. Morgan chases her up the stairs and in one of the most violent outbursts I’ve seen in any movie, Philip throws the lamp into Morgan’s face and he craters altogether realistically. Knowing the antagonism between Karloff and Whale, you almost wonder if Whale had the prop master replace the fake lamp with a real one. It’s a convincing collapse is what I’m saying. 

So things have been a little weird but we are, oh so not, done yet. Philip tells Margaret about the door and what they heard and find the Femm’s father Roderick in bed. One hundred and five years old and still going strong, right? Nope. But alive enough to spill on the whole wretched family, including his other son Saul, a pyromaniac psychotic who is locked behind that door. Problem is, when Morgan gets drunk, he likes to let Saul out. 

In the meantime, Penderel and Gladys have come back inside and meet up with Sir William and tell him of their decision to live together. In the other, previous, meantime, Margaret and Philip have discovered Morgan has let Saul out. Once downstairs, Morgan goes after Margaret and Philip and Pemberton drag him into the kitchen in a pretty realistic wrestling match. I would almost buy that Karloff was that imposing. 

Rebecca hides in her room and locks the door and while all that’s going on, Penderel tells Gladys and Margaret to fortify themselves in a closet. Saul appears downstairs and this is where things get beautifully crazy again or some more. As played by Brember Wills, Saul is a study in smart and crazy. Wills himself was a respected British stage actor who had worked with Laughton and came over with him and who left a small filmography behind. In this flick, his two handed with Melvyn Douglas is somewhere between outright hilarious and borderline disconcerting. Saul is a loon but not unobservant; when he sees Penderel eyeing a poker to defend himself with (Saul has picked up the carving knife from the evening’s meal), he knocks Penderel out, grabs a burning log from the fire and proceeds to set the house afire by heading upstairs to set a tapestry alight. 

Penderel wakes up and follows Saul. Another pretty realistic fight ensues. Penderel’s been injured and it’s to Douglas’s credit that he acts injured as Wills pummels him and attempts to strangle him. Knocking out a chunk of the balcony, Penderel angles it so that both of them plummet to the floor below and honestly, it’s a well-done, stomach turning stunt. 

Morgan - maybe soberer? - finds and releases Gladys and Margaret and while everyone else tends to the injured Penderel (I keep calling him that but his name is Roger…I’m too lazy to update the references.)

Normally, this would be a huge buzzkill to the campy genius of this film, but the drama in this third act only serves the denouement. Philip and Margaret leave to get an ambulance while Gladys and Sir William take care of Roger and in the morning, Horace comes down and is downright chipper. Chipper! I tell you! Much of the previous night, he had been forecasting doom and death for all; it’s the contrast that makes this work so well. Naturally, Penderel awakens to Gladys looking over him and asks him to marry him. They kiss and it’s a wrap.

In addition to subtext and Whale’s deft handling of the material, it may be of additional note that this movie inspired Charles Addams’ creations in the New Yorker magazine that eventually became the Addams Family on TV and in film. It makes so much sense, and of course, in both iterations, that old dark house was populated with a pretty sex-positive couple and just maybe some alternative relationships, as well.

I’ve gone on about this cult gem because I overlooked so much of it the first time around and also, because I think it speaks to something about how queer lives were or were not accepted in Depression Era America. Gay and lesbian sexualities may not have been widely supported or accepted institutionally, but I have been wondering if the general population at the time was more tolerant than it would be in the post-World War Two era. Some say that by the early forties, Whale quit making movies owing to a homophobic backlash and returned to directing the stage. Because Laughton and Karloff and Thesiger were covered with their respective marriages, little - if anything - was said to damage their reputations based on their sexuality.

“The Old Dark House” is as campy as “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”, just without those bitchin’ songs. It is strikingly modern in its attitudes in how each person presents. Laughton is not overtly feminine in his performance, but comes across very much as that uncle who never married; Thesiger’s Horace and to some degree Wills’ Saul read as more explicitly gay and I wish that Whale could have cut Karloff some slack and given us a deeper sense of the relationship between Morgan and Saul; nowhere in the text is it stated that the two have anything like a serious relationship, but given the general subtext, I kind of wonder if there wasn’t something of that nature originally intended. 

Oh, and all of this takes place in an hour and twelve minutes. The economy with which Whale told this tale is inspiring. When so many films struggle to contain themselves to an hour and forty-five minutes (rare, very rare) and regularly go on for two and a half, it isn’t surprising people wonder if movies need to be that long. I’d argue that in some cases, yes, definitely, where a film has something to say; however, where there are so many with thin plots and often thinner characters, it’s ludicrous the waste of time and the accretion of narrative fat. In this regard, many films from this era demonstrate the beauty of succinct storytelling. 

“The Old Dark House” is a gem. I also wonder if there are elements of the subtext that I am missing. That said, it is one of those films from a period of liberalization in the United States (pre-Hayes Code) that enjoins interrogation of queer spaces in cinema and suggests that the general polity that went to the movies at the time may have been more accepting than subsequent generations. Given the uptick in anti-LGBTQ+ violence and the increased enmity from the hard right conservative movements in the U.S., it might be worth revisiting an era in which Americans were struggling to come out of a massive economic depression and were supported by a government bent on providing jobs and reducing the hegemony of the corporations and their executive classes.

Could a case be made that movies like the present one under review were also political statements? Probably not, but they reflected something of where we were at the time and it is telling that by the film’s end, the Femms are almost endearing. We come around to a kind of acceptance of them as members of a family that had its share of challenges to meet. There is something in that worth considering, I think.

To be sure, Whale’s partner of two decades, David Lewis, contended that Whale’s sexual orientation was not germane to his work, that Whale was an artist beyond being “just” a gay artist. James Curtis takes another tack where he interprets Frankenstein’s monster as representative of oppressed classes, for example. I can’t really speak to Whale’s consideration of class, but while I think I understand where Lewis’s intention stems from, I am more concerned with what I think is a more certain interpretation of this film, at least, given what I see as the most likely subtext. 

Further reading

Whale is well-documented across the web and it is worth reading works like Russo’s “The Celluloid Closet” to get a sense of how to read this and other films in the light of queer theory.

Curtis, James. James Whale: A New World of Gods and Monsters. Boston. Faber and Faber. 1998.

Erickson, Glenn. The Old Dark House - 1932. Trailers from Hell. October 14, 2017. https://trailersfromhell.com/the-old-dark-house-1932/?amp=1

Helford, Elyce Rae. Queering Classic Hollywood: James Whale and the Queer Delights of “The Old Dark House.” The Take. https://the-take.com/read/queering-classic-hollywood-james-whale-and-the-queer-delights-of-the-old-dark-house

Russo, Vito. The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies. New York. Harper Collins. 1993.