The Uninvited (1944)

The Uninvited (1944) is a product of the upsurge in interest in the supernatural, most specifically spiritualism and ghosts, during World War Two.  With significant numbers of people losing friends and loved ones, it was hardly surprising that they should want to seek comfort in the idea that they might, in some way, survive beyond death.  Even less surprising that there was no shortage of those who wanted to exploit these desires.  Sometimes in the form fake psychics and spiritualists offering the possibility of contact with the dead, (which, in the UK, culminated in the country's last invocation of the Witchcraft Acts in order to prosecute one such individual), but also in the form of a number of films on the theme from Hollywood studios.  Some of these, like A Guy Named Joe (1943) offered reassuring visions of the afterlife, with deceased souls still able to guide the lives of loved ones in a benign manner before passing on, while others presented more traditional ghost stories.  The Uninvited falls into the latter category, but, being a studio A-movie, tries to avoid the crude shocks of the B horrors and monster movies being cranked out by the likes of Universal and Monogram, aiming instead for subtlety.  Indeed, British critics praised it for lacking any explicit ghostly manifestations, relying rather on suggestion and subtle clues.  This, however, was simply a result of such manifestations being cut from the UK print before release.  In the full US print, we do get some honest-to-goodness ectoplasmic ghostly appearances, albeit briefly, although most of the time the spirits manifest indirectly, by turning pages in a book to indicate relevant information, for instance.

The Uninvited is basically a haunted house movie, wrapped up in a romance, decorated with some Gothic trimmings, (imperilled heroine driven to the brink of madness and incarcerated in remote 'institute' by sinister 'governess' character), which starts lightly and comedically, but takes a much darker turn in its latter stages as its central mystery is unravelled.  The question throughout the film is that of just who it is haunting the old Cornish house bought by siblings Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey for a suspiciously low price from the previous owner.  Said owner's young granddaughter is convinced that it is the spirit of her mother, who died there and it turns out that she is right, except that, in the film's major twist, her mother isn't who she thought she was and that hers isn't the only ghost in the house.  Much of the plot builds around the apparently contradictory nature of the haunting, with the single spirit Milland and Hussey think is in residence being hostile one moment, despairing and protective the next.  The situation is complicated by the Grandfather and his daughter's friend and nurse attempting to protect her reputation and conceal the truth of her parentage from the granddaughter.  The ultimate revelation that the woman the girl has been told her mother and who she has aspired to be like was, in fact, a jealous and vindictive spurned wife in real life who conspired to murder both the child and her real mother, her artist husband's Spanish model, comes as something of a surprise.  A heroine who is the offspring of an illicit extra-marital affair, (then brought up as the daughter of the wife) certainly wasn't common in forties mainstream cinema.  Particularly a studio picture.

The whole thing, as you might expect from a Paramount A-picture, is very well made, with excellent production values and a superior cast.  Lewis Allen's direction is atmospheric, particularly in the scenes at the house and later in the 'instiute' where the granddaughter finds herself confined, as her Grandfather desperately tries to keep the secrets of her true parentage.  At times its depiction of the haunting are quite effective, but being a 'prestige' picture and a 'legitimate' film, The Uninvited sometimes feels as if it is slightly embarrassed by its subject matter (which, after all, was usually the stuff of B-movies featuring Bela Lugosi or The Bowery Boys, sometimes both).  All too often it uses humour to try and undercut the more horrific aspects, as if trying to reassure the audience 'it's OK, it's all just an amusing anecdote', which jars somewhat in the later stages, when the spirit of the 'fake' mother starts to finish what she started in life and kill her 'daughter', while the spirit of the real mother tries to warn everyone.  The heroine's rapid acceptance of her real parentage and rejection of the memory of the woman she thought was her mother, at the film's climax, also seems a little jarring and doesn't really ring true, (particularly when one bears in mind that she's also just suffered the loss of her Grandfather and the revelation of his deception).  Nevertheless, The Uninvited remains an enjoyable experience, in its glossy professionalism and slick presentation, that are characteristic of its era.  A 'horror' film for more sophisticated audiences, or so Paramount would have you believe.