A composer and his sister discover that the reason they are able to purchase a beautiful gothic seacoast mansion very cheaply is the house's unsavory past.A composer and his sister discover that the reason they are able to purchase a beautiful gothic seacoast mansion very cheaply is the house's unsavory past.A composer and his sister discover that the reason they are able to purchase a beautiful gothic seacoast mansion very cheaply is the house's unsavory past.
- Nominated for 1 Oscar
- 1 nomination total
David Clyde
- Ben - Boat Owner
- (uncredited)
Betty Farrington
- Carmel's Ghost
- (voice)
- (uncredited)
Helena Grant
- Servant
- (uncredited)
Lynda Grey
- Ghost of Mary Meredith
- (uncredited)
Holmes Herbert
- Charlie Jessup
- (uncredited)
Leyland Hodgson
- Taxi Driver
- (uncredited)
John Kieran
- Foreword Narrator
- (voice)
- (uncredited)
Queenie Leonard
- Mrs. Taylor
- (uncredited)
Moyna MacGill
- Mrs. Coatsworthy
- (uncredited)
Jessica Newcombe
- Miss Edith Ellis
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaWhen Stella enters a trance and speaks in Spanish during the seance, she says, "Listen, listen! It's not her! It's not her! Do not believe anything! Do not listen to her, because she's lying! You thief! Thief of my love!"
- GoofsThe film is set in 1937, but the "going-to-church" sequence features a car with headlights blacked out in the style required due to WWII in the early 1940s.
- Quotes
Pamela Fitzgerald: Well, I must dash back to Lizzie. We're fighting over how much Sherry to put in a tipsy pudding. She wants to make it dead drunk.
- ConnectionsFeatured in 100 Years of Horror: Ghosts (1996)
- SoundtracksTo Stella by Starlight
(uncredited)
Music by Victor Young
Played on piano by Ray Milland (dubbed) and heard as a main theme in the score.
Richard Hayman and his Orchestra performed the music. Richard Hayman also played the harmonica solo in the piece.
Featured review
The Uninvited is directed by Lewis Allen and adapted to screenplay by Frank Partos and Dodie Smith from the novel Uneasy Freehold written by Dorothy Macardle. It stars Ray Milland, Gail Russell, Ruth Hussey, Donald Crisp and Cornelia Otis Skinner. Music is by Victor Young and cinematography by Charles B. Lang.
"They call them the haunted shores, these stretches of Devonshire and Cornwall and Ireland which rear up against the westward ocean. Mists gather here... and sea fog... and eerie stories..."
Wonderful old fashioned ghost story that neatly blends romance and a light comedic tone into the pot, The Uninvited is very much a movie of significance. It marks a point in cinematic time when the ghost story proved it could be played for true unnerving impact. It remains a sub-genre of horror that is sorely lacking in bona fide classics, spookers that have longevity, the ability to raise the goose flesh no matter how many times they are revisited. With a new special edition DVD recently released, and the likes of Martin Scorsese and Guillermo del Toro championing its cause by putting it on their lists of favourite frighteners, The Uninvited is proving its worth as an old sub-genre classic.
Plot is pretty conventional stuff. It's 1937 and Milland and Hussey play a brother and sister who fall in love with a cliff side house they stumble upon whilst holidaying on the southwest coast of England. Sure enough they snag themselves the house at a ridiculously cheap price, this even though they are warned of some previous disturbances at the address. Cue a mysteriously locked room that when opened reveals itself to be deathly cold, pets that will not go up the stairs and then comes the hauntings... So far so formulaic, then, but as the story begins to unravel in the second half of the movie, where the light touch is left behind, a fizzer of back story comes to the fore and one or two extra surprises leap out of the narrative. This is not lazy plotting, it is well constructed, the mystery element is strong and sidles up nicely with the spooky goings on.
"If you listen to it long enough, all your senses are sharpened. You come by strange instincts. You get to recognise a peculiar cold that is the first warning. A cold which is no mere matter of degrees Farenheit, but a draining of warmth from the vital centres of the living."
This is a spooker that, unsurprisingly for the time, is devoid of visceral shocks and blunderbuss like scares. This is more about atmosphere (Lang was Oscar nominated for his noirish photography) and fear of the unknown, where the sound of a sobbing woman in the darkness chills the blood. Perhaps surprisingly for the time? We do get to see spectral images, and they still work and create the desired effect, who needs a computer generated image spitting blood when you can have ethereal spookiness floating eerily above the ground? While we are at it, who needs a beefed up pretty boy actor fighting the good fight against evil when you can have an elegant Ray Milland doing it with a glint in his eye instead? The cast are very effective, with Russell really making a mark so early in her career, while Young's score is both sinister and tender (the song Stella by Starlight would become a popular standard) at all the right times.
A genuine ghost story for those who prefer the sparing atmospheric touch to the noisy carnage approach. 8/10
"They call them the haunted shores, these stretches of Devonshire and Cornwall and Ireland which rear up against the westward ocean. Mists gather here... and sea fog... and eerie stories..."
Wonderful old fashioned ghost story that neatly blends romance and a light comedic tone into the pot, The Uninvited is very much a movie of significance. It marks a point in cinematic time when the ghost story proved it could be played for true unnerving impact. It remains a sub-genre of horror that is sorely lacking in bona fide classics, spookers that have longevity, the ability to raise the goose flesh no matter how many times they are revisited. With a new special edition DVD recently released, and the likes of Martin Scorsese and Guillermo del Toro championing its cause by putting it on their lists of favourite frighteners, The Uninvited is proving its worth as an old sub-genre classic.
Plot is pretty conventional stuff. It's 1937 and Milland and Hussey play a brother and sister who fall in love with a cliff side house they stumble upon whilst holidaying on the southwest coast of England. Sure enough they snag themselves the house at a ridiculously cheap price, this even though they are warned of some previous disturbances at the address. Cue a mysteriously locked room that when opened reveals itself to be deathly cold, pets that will not go up the stairs and then comes the hauntings... So far so formulaic, then, but as the story begins to unravel in the second half of the movie, where the light touch is left behind, a fizzer of back story comes to the fore and one or two extra surprises leap out of the narrative. This is not lazy plotting, it is well constructed, the mystery element is strong and sidles up nicely with the spooky goings on.
"If you listen to it long enough, all your senses are sharpened. You come by strange instincts. You get to recognise a peculiar cold that is the first warning. A cold which is no mere matter of degrees Farenheit, but a draining of warmth from the vital centres of the living."
This is a spooker that, unsurprisingly for the time, is devoid of visceral shocks and blunderbuss like scares. This is more about atmosphere (Lang was Oscar nominated for his noirish photography) and fear of the unknown, where the sound of a sobbing woman in the darkness chills the blood. Perhaps surprisingly for the time? We do get to see spectral images, and they still work and create the desired effect, who needs a computer generated image spitting blood when you can have ethereal spookiness floating eerily above the ground? While we are at it, who needs a beefed up pretty boy actor fighting the good fight against evil when you can have an elegant Ray Milland doing it with a glint in his eye instead? The cast are very effective, with Russell really making a mark so early in her career, while Young's score is both sinister and tender (the song Stella by Starlight would become a popular standard) at all the right times.
A genuine ghost story for those who prefer the sparing atmospheric touch to the noisy carnage approach. 8/10
- hitchcockthelegend
- Nov 1, 2012
- Permalink
Details
Box office
- Gross worldwide
- $6
- Runtime1 hour 39 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1
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