The Scare Salon

The movie was adapted from a 1933 novel called Some Must Watch by Ethel Lina White; prior to the release of the 1946 film, the book had been adapted for radio, and it would go on to get another radio production in 1949, as well as three further film versions: one in 1961 starring Elizabeth Montgomery and Lillian Gish; one in 1975 with Jacqueline Bisset; and one in 2000 with Nicollette Sheridan.

The 1946 version came about when producer David O. Selznick bought the rights to the novel, intending to cast Ingrid Bergman in the lead role. Later, though, Selznick sold the rights to the book (as well as a bunch of other properties) to RKO Pictures in order to finance a western he wanted to make. RKO started production on the film, casting Dorothy McGuire in the lead; she would go on to win an Oscar for Best Actress for the 1947 film Gentleman’s Agreement, and is probably most familiar to people nowadays for her roles in 1957’s Old Yeller and 1960’s Swiss Family Robinson. The film also features a great turn by legendary actress Ethel Barrymore, known as “The First Lady of American Theatre.”

The story is set over one single day and night in the early 20th century, specifically 1906, in a small village in Vermont. Our main protagonist is Helen (Dorothy McGuire), a mute woman who works as a caregiver/companion to an ailing old woman on a massive family estate.

At the beginning of the film, it’s Helen’s day off, and she’s at a local inn attending the showing of a silent movie, quite a big deal in 1906. While she and the other patrons are watching the film, a woman who lives in a room upstairs is murdered. The victim had what the characters term an “affliction,” or a disability in modern parlance; in her case, she was a paraplegic. Some exposition by the investigating constable lets the audience know that this is the third recent murder to occur and that all the victims were disabled somehow; one of them was “simple-minded,” while the other had a disfiguring scar on her face.

Because this is a small town and everyone knows Helen and knows about her muteness, they become concerned that she might be the next target. It’s a two-mile walk back to her house/place of employment from the inn, and the constable urges her to hurry up and get back there before it gets dark. Luckily for her, she’s met on the road by a friend/potential suitor named Dr. Parry (Kent Smith, who was also in the classic Cat People from 1942), and he gives her a lift back to the manor. There’s a bit of a subplot where Dr. Parry is fairly new in town, and has something of a rivalry going on with the village’s crotchety old sawbones, Dr. Harvey (Erville Alderson).

After Dr. Parry drops Helen off at the gates of the estate, there’s a great, suspenseful sequence where a bad storm suddenly blows up out of nowhere, and Helen starts getting nervous because she hears rustling in the nearby bushes. The rustling turns out to be just a cute bunny rabbit, but we as the audience see that there’s a shadowy figure of a man watching Helen from among the trees. He starts to come at her after she fumbles and drops her house key in the mud, but she retrieves it and hauls ass to the house, after which the stalker backs off, seemingly waiting for his ideal moment.

Once she’s safely inside, we meet the rest of the household. The matriarch of the family is the bedridden Mrs. Warren (Ethel Barrymore), a cantankerous and awesome old lady who seems to know everything about what’s going on, even though she seemingly never leaves her room. There’s also her stepson, Professor Albert Warren (George Brent), as well as her real son Steven (Gordon Oliver), a smirking playboy who’s just returned from Europe. Steven has been knocking boots with Albert’s secretary Blanche (Rhonda Fleming), who also seems to live in the house. Rounding out the residents/potential suspects are housekeeper Mrs. Oates (played by Elsa Lanchester, the Bride of Frankenstein herself), groundskeeper Mr. Oates (Rhys Williams), Nurse Barker (Sara Allgood), who is the subject of a bit of a running gag where Mrs. Warren hates her and never wants her to do anything but sit out in the hallway and leave her alone, and the adorable Carlton the bulldog, who is threatened with several beatings by Mrs. Oates for constantly being underfoot, but is never harmed in any way and is also not the murderer (spoiler alert).

Shortly after Helen returns home, Mrs. Oates discovers a window open that she’s sure she closed before, and the audience is shown the feet of a man who is clearly skulking around in the shadows of the house, watching Helen as she goes about her duties.

When Helen goes to tend to Mrs. Warren, the cranky old battle ax spookily tells her that she’s in danger and should pack her bags and GTFO of the house tonight. She doesn’t specify who or what this particular danger is, but considering a dude is creeping around the house, we can rest assured that the possibly psychic old girl is likely onto something.

Happily for Helen, Dr. Parry has pretty much professed his intention to marry her and wants to take her away from the house, specifically to a specialist in Boston who can maybe help her get her voice back. It’s at this point that we discover that Helen has been mute since she was a child, when she witnessed her house burning down with her parents still inside it. It’s kind of a weird scene where we find this out, because Dr. Parry, who seemed like a chill enough chap up to this point, grabs her by the arms and yells about the tragedy right into her face. I get that he’s trying to force her to confront the trauma and therefore get past it, but it does kinda come out of left field, and I wonder if part of the scene’s purpose was also to cast suspicion on Dr. Parry as the murderer.

Meanwhile, Blanche and the somewhat skeevy Steven have a falling out, and Blanche decides she’s going to skedaddle along with Helen, so she goes to pack her bags. Dr. Parry gets called away to another patient so tells Helen and Blanche to sit tight until he gets back. Later on, though, he sends word that he won’t be able to get back to the estate tonight because the patient is way worse than he thought. Unfortunately for Blanche, she ends up getting murdered in the basement when she goes to look for her suitcase.

Now, up to this point, the movie has been leaning pretty hard into the theory that Steven is the killer: earlier in the story, the constable says that the killer lives in this area; the murders only started when Steven got back from Europe; he’s portrayed as an arrogant douche who low-key sexually harasses Blanche at every opportunity; and he lies to the cops about being outside the house, even though he’s later found to have mud on his shoes. You’re also led to assume that Mrs. Warren, Steven’s mom, also thinks he’s the murderer, as she cryptically says there’s always “trouble” whenever he comes home. Because of this, modern audiences will likely guess that it isn’t him, because it’s never the most obvious suspect in stories like this.

Helen, though, also thinks Steven is the culprit; she’s the one who finds Blanche’s body in the basement, and when Steven shows up seconds later, she freaks out, bolts, and locks him in the cellar. She then attempts to call the police, forgetting for the moment that she can’t talk, so she finally approaches Albert and frantically writes that Steven has killed Blanche and that he’s now trapped in the basement.

I admit I thought for a second that it might turn out that Dr. Parry was the killer all along, just because it would have been such a surprise, but in hindsight, I’m glad they didn’t do that since there really wasn’t anything pointing to him being guilty and it would have been just a cheap maneuver for shock value. Nope, it transpires that the killer is actually the first person I thought it was, Professor Albert, who was so warped by his late father’s constant berating of him as “weak” that he decided to target women who were weak and imperfect. He was also so sneaky that he would only commit crimes when his stepbrother Steven was home, in order to allay suspicion from himself, a ploy that seems to have worked like gangbusters.

It appears that Albert is going to kill Helen as well, but at the last minute, badass elderly avenger Mrs. Warren staggers out of her bedroom and blows her kill-happy stepson away with her husband’s hunting rifle, calling him a murderer to his face as he slides down the wall and dies. Helen screams upon seeing this, thereby regaining her voice. Steven is released from the cellar, and Mrs. Warren profusely apologizes to him for thinking he was the killer all this time. She then dies in his arms, and Helen calls Dr. Parry, now able to speak to him for the first time and ready to start their new life together.

The Spiral Staircase is a fantastic thriller and easily one of the best horror-adjacent films of the 1940s. It’s beautifully shot, well-acted, and really suspenseful, with some contemporary critics comparing it favorably to an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Although it will be pretty obvious to modern viewers who the killer is from fairly early on, it’s still a great watch, and the balance between the creepy atmosphere and the occasional hints of levity are very well done. Anyone who’s into horror from this era should definitely have this on their must-see list, and fans of slashers might want to give it a look as well, as an early progenitor of the subgenre tropes. Highly recommended.

Until next time, keep it creepy, my friends.