| The Spiral Staircase | |
|---|---|
 Original theatrical poster | |
| Directed by | Robert Siodmak |
| Screenplay by | Mel Dinelli |
| Based on | Some Must Watch byEthel Lina White[1] |
| Produced by | Dore Schary |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Nicholas Musuraca |
| Edited by | |
| Music by | Roy Webb |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by | RKO Radio Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 84 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $750,000[3] |
| Box office | $2.8 million (U.S. rentals)[4] |
The Spiral Staircase is a 1946 Americanpsychological horror film[5] directed byRobert Siodmak and starringDorothy McGuire,George Brent, andEthel Barrymore. Set over the course of one evening, the film follows amute young woman in an early-20th centuryVermont town who is stalked and terrorized in a rural mansion by aserial killer targeting women withdisabilities.Kent Smith,Rhonda Fleming,Gordon Oliver andElsa Lanchester appear in supporting roles. It was adapted for the screen byMel Dinelli from the novelSome Must Watch (1933) byEthel Lina White.
The project originated with producerDavid O. Selznick, who purchased the rights to White's novel, intending to castIngrid Bergman in the lead role. Selznick subsequently sold the rights toRKO Radio Pictures, who commenced production and cast McGuire in the lead. Filming took place at the RKO Radio Pictures studio lot in Los Angeles between August and October 1945.
The Spiral Staircase premiered in New York City on February 6, 1946 and went on to become a box-office success, earning nearly $3 million. It was met by favorable critical reviews, praised for its cinematography, atmosphere, and suspense. Barrymore earned anAcademy Award nomination forBest Supporting Actress for her performance in the film. In the years since its release, film scholars have notedThe Spiral Staircase for its stylistic mixture of horror andfilm noir elements, and cited it as a progenitor of the contemporaryslasher film.[6]
In a village in 1906 Vermont, Helen, amute girl, attends a silent film screening in a local inn. During the screening, a lame woman limps out of the theatre to her room. She is strangled by a man who was hiding in her closet. Her murder is the third in a string of killings in the community.
Dr. Parry, a friend of Helen's, drives her to the Warren home, a large estate outside town where Helen is employed as a live-in companion for the bedridden Mrs. Warren. Also residing in the house are Mrs. Warren's stepson Albert, a local professor; her son, Steven, a charming, rakish playboy; and live-in staff: Mrs. Oates, a housekeeper; her husband Mr. Oates, a handyman; Blanche, Albert's beautiful secretary who is having an affair with Steven, who has recently returned from abroad; and Nurse Barker, who Mrs. Warren verbally abuses.
In the mansion while Helen pauses to see herself in a mirror, the killer is spying on her. Before anything happens to her, someone enters the area.
Helen finds Mrs. Oates, who discusses the murder and expresses fear for Helen, as the killer appears to be targeting women with disabilities. After Mrs. Warren loses consciousness, Dr. Parry is summoned to the home. Nurse Barker discovers that the bottle of ether has gone missing, and Albert sends Mr. Oates to retrieve some in town. Meanwhile, Mrs. Warren regains consciousness and urges Dr. Parry to take Helen with him. He offers to take Helen to Boston and help her work through the trauma of her parents' death, the shock of which triggered her muteness. She agrees to go, and Dr. Parry makes plans to return in the evening.
After an argument with Steven, Blanche asks Helen if she can leave with her that night. She agrees, and Blanche goes down the spiral staircase to the basement to retrieve her suitcase. There Blanche is attacked and strangled by the killer. Helen finds her corpse in the basement and is confronted by Steven. Frightened that he is responsible, she locks him downstairs and flees upstairs. She attempts to wake Mrs. Oates who has passed out, drunk on the professor's stolen brandy. Helen attempts to call Dr. Parry but is unable to speak to the telephone operator.
Albert finds Helen frantic, and she writes on a notepad that Blanche has been murdered. As he follows her up the staircase to Mrs. Warren's room, he confesses to killing her out of jealousy, "Blanche, whom I loved, did not love me." Albert then reveals how he got everyone out of the way to get her alone, and that he has a goal of killing the "weak and imperfect of the world." Albert tells her: "I saw you earlier looking at yourself in the mirror, and you had no mouth." Helen flees, locking herself in Mrs. Warren's bedroom.
Meanwhile, the constable shows up and is answered at the front door by Albert; he leaves a message for Helen letting her know that Dr. Parry is unable to return that night. Helen returns to the basement to free Steven but finds Albert waiting. He chases her, but they are met by Mrs. Warren, armed with a gun. She shoots Albert, killing him, and Helen screams in horror. Mrs. Warren explains that she suspected Albert was the killer, but wasn't sure because the murders stopped when Steven was away. She notes Albert started killing again when Steven returned to cast suspicion on him.
Mrs. Warren orders Helen to retrieve Steven, so she frees him from the basement closet. Mrs. Warren embraces him and dies on the staircase in his arms. Downstairs, Helen calls Dr. Parry on the telephone—she is now able to fully speak.
Since its release,The Spiral Staircase has been subject to significantfilm criticism and academic discussion, particularly in regard to the film's visual motifs and blending ofhorror andfilm noir.[7] Although characterized by contemporaneous press as a "mystery romance,"[8] the film has been noted by contemporary critics for its prominent Gothic horror elements.[9] It has also been cited as one of numerous progenitors to theslasher film,[10] specifically for its female-centric cast[11] andpoint-of-view cinematography deployed during scenes in which the killer stalks his victims.[12]
Film scholar Amy Golden notes several significant visual allusions in the film, such asLuis Buñuel'sUn chien andalou (1929) andMaya Deren'sMeshes of the Afternoon (1943).[5] Golden cites the film as a "quintessential example of 1940s horror."[5] Writer Denis Grunes in 2007 suggested the film is "in fact a masked allegory of the passage ofsilent cinema into sound," citing the mute protagonist's predicament as evidence.[13] This notion was also suggested by film scholar Amy Lawrence in her 1991 bookEcho and Narcissus: Women's Voices in Classical Hollywood Cinema.[14]
Adapted from theEthel Lina White novelSome Must Watch (1933),The Spiral Staircase was screenwriterMel Dinelli's first screenplay.[15] RKO Pictures had acquired the rights to produce the film from independent producerDavid O. Selznick, who himself purchased the rights to White's novel; Selznick had originally conceived a film adaptation withIngrid Bergman in the lead role.[16] Selznick sold the rights to the project (along with several others he owned) to RKO in order to help finance the WesternDuel in the Sun (1946).[16] Under the terms of the sale, Selznick was given aback end cut of the film's earnings,[16] and subsequently gave star Dorothy McGuire aconvertible as a bonus for appearing in the film.[17] The screenplay originally bore the same title as White's novel, though a subsequentworking title for the project wasThe Silence of Helen McCord.[18][19][20]
When writing the screenplay, Dinelli received input fromDore Schary, who was recommended by Selznick.[16] In the early stages of Dinelli's writing, it was decided to change the setting fromEngland toNew England in the United States, which Dinelli and Schary both decided would lend a Gothic tone to the story.[16] The spiral staircase featured in the script (from which the title of the film takes its name) also featured in White's original novel.[21]
The film was shot between August and November 1945[22] on the RKO Studio lot inLos Angeles, California,[18][23] on a production budget of approximately $750,000.[3] In November 1945, it was publicized that actress McGuire went missing for approximately twenty minutes during filming after unintentionally locking herself in one of several labyrinthine rooms constructed in a studio basement.[24]
CinematographerNicholas Musuraca was hired to shoot the film, who had previously shot several low-budget films forVal Lewton at RKO, such asCat People (1942),The Seventh Victim (1943), andThe Curse of the Cat People (1944).[15][23] Musuraca employed several techniques to achieve the film'schiaroscuro-inspired compositions,[25] which included shooting at low angles to achieve the appearance of deep shadows onscreen.[23] In order to conceal the killer's identity, Musuraca shot director Siodmak's eyes for the close-up shots of the killer watching Helen.[23] On October 10, 1945, toward the end of the shoot, the film's assistant director, Harry Scott, died.[18]
The film featured in the opening sequence at the movie house isD. W. Griffith'sThe Sands of Dee, which was in reality released in 1912, six years afterThe Spiral Staircase takes place.[26]
The Spiral Staircase premiered in New York City on February 6, 1946.[27][18] This was followed by a national theatrical run, during which the film screened in various cities across the United States during the late-winter and early-spring months of 1946.[i] It was later screened in England and Wales in June 1946.[33][34]
During its theatrical run, the film managed to gross $885,000,[27] with a total of $2.8 million in U.S. rentals, according toVariety.[4] The film was a box-office success, netting a profit of approximately $900,000.[35]
Variety wrote, "This is a smooth production of an obvious, though suspenseful murder thriller, ably acted and directed. Mood and pace are well set, and story grips throughout."[36]Bosley Crowther ofThe New York Times wrote, "This is a shocker, plain and simple, and whatever pretensions it has to psychological drama may be considered merely as a concession to a currently popular fancy."[37] During its local theatrical runs, the film earned reviews in various local press: a review in thePittsburgh Press called the film a "blood-and-thunder melodrama...done so well except that it tends to be tedious at times instead of tense, so leisurely is it paced that it works up considerable suspense."[29] In theBeatrice Daily Sun ofBeatrice, Nebraska, it was noted: "An ingenious plot and the work of a superb cast lend distinction toThe Spiral Staircase," with the film being ultimately deemed as "gripping."[38] A review published in theCorvallis Gazette-Times ofCorvallis, Oregon, summarized:
The Spiral Staircase is one of the season's top mystery dramas... this gripping RKO Radio offering is laid in a New England town about the turn of the century... The suspense mounts as the menace closes in around the helpless heroine, who is unable to escape from the frightening family of her employer. A climax, terrific in its impact, had yesterday's audience breathless and tense.[32]
On the internet review aggregatorRotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 87% based on23 reviews, with aweighted average rating of 8/10.[39] Contemporary author and film criticLeonard Maltin awarded the film three and a half out of a possible four stars, calling it "[a] Superb Hitchock-like thriller with [an] unforgettable performance by McGuire".[40]Pauline Kael praised the film's establishment of characters, noting that it "has all the trappings of the genre...but the psychopaths are quite presentable people, and this, plus the skillful, swift direction, makes the terror convincing."[41]
A review published in theTime Out film guide called the film a "superb thriller," concluding: "Hitchcock couldn't have bettered the casual mastery with which the opening defines not just time and place (small town, turn of the century) but the themes ofvoyeurism and entrapment."[42] Film scholar Andrew Spicer praised the film's cinematography, calling it "the most beautifully crafted of Siodmak's films, superbly paced with the suspense steadily accumulating in intensity aided by the expressive cinematography of Nicholas Musuraca."[43]Tom Milne of theTime Out Film Guide called the film "one of the undoubted masterpieces of the Gothic mode."[44]
Ethel Barrymore was nominated forBest Supporting Actress at the19th Academy Awards.[45]
The Spiral Staircase was released onVHS andDVD in 2000 byAnchor Bay Entertainment.[46][47] It was re-released on DVD byMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 2005 after the studio and its catalogue were acquired bySony Pictures.[46] On October 2, 2018,Kino Lorber released DVD andBlu-ray editions in the United States under license fromWalt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, which owns this film as part of the David O. Selznick library; Kino Lorber's release features a4K scan from the original film elements.[48]
The novel was adapted for a radio production starringHelen Hayes before reaching the screen.
The Spiral Staircase was adapted as a half-hour radio play on the November 25, 1949, broadcast ofScreen Director's Playhouse, starring Dorothy McGuire in her original role.
In 1961, a televised adaptation starringElizabeth Montgomery andLillian Gish was released.[49] It was remade again in 1975 asThe Spiral Staircase withJacqueline Bisset, and again as a 2000 TV filmThe Spiral Staircase withNicollette Sheridan.
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