THE UNINVITED (Criterion, 1944) D: Lewis Allen, w/ Ray Milland, Gail Russell. Rating: NNN DVD package: NNNN Rating: NNN
The Uninvited takes its haunting seriously, grounding it in crimes of the recent past whose passions still echo.
A brother and sister (Ray Milland, Ruth Hussey) buy an old house on the English coast and find it haunted by a woman sobbing in the night. The seller’s granddaughter (Gail Russell) is powerfully drawn to the place, and its growing hold on her leads the Londoners to answers involving illicit sex, murder and more.
Milland does a good mix of light-heartedness and anxiety, and Hussey comes across as genuinely terrified.
The visual essay by filmmaker Michael Almereyda takes The Uninvited as a springboard to explore the lives, careers and personas of Milland and Russell and the origins of seances. He adds some poetic musings on both cinema and its audience as ghosts.
EXTRAS Film essay, two radio versions, print essay, print interview with director Lewis Allen. English audio and subtitles.