I was supercharged with anticipation when I turned on the DVD player in my dank, cobwebby, unlit basement, an ideal setting within which to watch THE OLD DARK HOUSE. I had learned from reading the notes on the DVD box that THE OLD DARK HOUSE is a cult classic based on a novel by the eminent English literary critic, playwright, and fiction writer J.B. Priestley. (It's amusing to note that Priestley's novel originally bore the elegant title BENIGHTED, but after the movie became a hit, the publisher reprinted the novel under the same kindergarten-picture-book title as the movie.) Benn W. Levy, "one of England's top playwrights," wrote the script, and his reputation helped to attract an all-star cast of ten that included eight renowned stage actors from England. But for me, the greatest enticement of all was that the legendary James Whale (FRANKENSTEIN, THE INVISIBLE MAN, and BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN) was the director who orchestrated all of this talent in THE OLD DARK HOUSE.

As we all know, high expectations frequently end in a major letdown, and that's exactly what I experienced as I watched THE OLD DARK HOUSE. At first, I couldn't understand why I felt so disappointed, bored, and irritated. When I attempted to analyze the film's ingredients, I found each ingredient pleasing in itself. 

The acting is excellent, with especially noteworthy performances by Boris Karloff as a mute butler with a savagely scarred face, Eva Moore as a bitter, hateful matriarch obsessed with sin, death, and eternal damnation, Charles Laughton as an effusive, obnoxious, tenderhearted young materialist, and Brember Wills as a Bible-quoting homicidal pyromaniac. The setting is classic, an isolated house in the Welsh countryside on a dark and stormy night, and Arthur Edeson's shadowy, candlelit cinematography creates an appropriately foreboding atmosphere. The buildup of tension and apprehension, of suspense and dread, of impending doom culminates in a series of climactic action scenes that are surprisingly believable for a flick made in 1932.

When the five psychotic inhabitants of the house speak, their dialogue is grand, rhetorical, and ominous, but there are also five lost travelers who have sought shelter from the storm, and when they speak, or at least when they speak among themselves, their dialogue is clever and amusing, full of snappy comebacks and whimsical posturings. It's obvious that Levy, like so many English playwrights during the first half of the twentieth century, was struggling in these passages to emulate the exquisitely spritely and frothy wit of Oscar Wilde. Levy also included in the story a silly, absurd, giddily sweet romance of the sort that Wilde employs in THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST to mock the whole notion of falling in love.

In THE OLD DARK HOUSE, two of the travelers start flirting as soon as they lay eyes on each other. After a few minutes of gay repartee, they realize they have fallen deeply and hopelessly in love. A few minutes later, the girl's original companion gallantly gives her up while proclaiming that he can see she has found true love with another.

When I reviewed my analysis, it finally dawned on me why THE OLD DARK HOUSE had failed miserably to work its magic on me. The Gothic atmosphere, abnormal psychology, suspense, dread, and final outburst of violent action would make a fine movie. The witty dialogue and romantic comedy would make another fine movie. There are ways of mixing horror with comedy that work wonderfully well, but in this case the two tones clash and detract from each other, neutralizing each other's power, resulting in a film that's weird but also ineffective and dull.