The Uninvited

"The Story of a Love That is Out of This World!"

1944 1h 39m EN

👍

6.9

SOLID

★6.9TMDB · 237

MysteryHorrorFantasyRomance

Synopsis

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A pair of siblings from London purchase a surprisingly affordable, lonely cliff-top house in Cornwall, only to discover that it actually carries a ghostly price—and soon they’re caught up in a bizarre romantic triangle from beyond the grave.

“The Story of a Love That is Out of This World!”

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Cast

Ray Milland
Roderick Fitzgerald
Ruth Hussey
Pamela Fitzgerald
Gail Russell
Stella Meredith
Donald Crisp
Commander Beech
Alan Napier
Dr. Scott
Cornelia Otis Skinner
Miss Holloway
Barbara Everest
Lizzie Flynn
Dorothy Stickney
Miss Bird

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Lewis Allen
Writers: Dodie Smith, Frank Partos
Languages: English
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

ERA

Did you know

82 years old — a genuine piece of film history.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

CRAFT

Did you know

Lean credit list — fewer than 30 people officially credited.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Lewis Allen, shot by Charles Lang. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Victor Young. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Doane Harrison shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey and Gail Russell carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "The Story of a Love That is Out of This World!".

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

WILD

Did you know

IMDB entry: tt0037415 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Lewis Allen directs. Charles Lang behind the camera. Victor Young scores. Doane Harrison cuts. Runs lean at under 100 minutes. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

182 years old — a genuine piece of film history.
2Lean credit list — fewer than 30 people officially credited.
3Directed by Lewis Allen, shot by Charles Lang. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
4Original score by Victor Young. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
5Editor Doane Harrison shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
6Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey and Gail Russell carry the top of the cast.
7Marketing tagline: "The Story of a Love That is Out of This World!".
8IMDB entry: tt0037415 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
9Classified under 27 themes, including "sibling relationship", "sunrise", "based on novel or book", "cat".

The technical file

Cinematography: Charles Lang
Original score: Victor Young
Editing: Doane Harrison
Costume design: Edith Head
Makeup / hair: Wally Westmore
Runtime: 99 min · 1h 39m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Original language: EN
Certification (US): NR
IMDB: The Uninvited (1944)

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Lewis Allen

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Community reviews

What people are saying

John Chard2019-01-05
★ 8/10
That's not because there are more ghosts here than other places, mind you. It's just that people who live here about are strangely aware of them. The Uninvited is directed by Lewis Allen and adapted to screenplay by Frank Partos and Dodie Smith from the novel Uneasy Freehold written by Dorothy Macardle. It stars Ray Milland, Gail Russell, Ruth Hussey, Donald Crisp and Cornelia Otis Skinner. Music is by Victor Young and cinematography by Charles B. Lang. "They call them the haunted shores, these stretches of Devonshire and Cornwall and Ireland which rear up against the westward ocean. Mists gather here... and sea fog... and eerie stories..." Wonderful old fashioned ghost story that neatly blends romance and a light comedic tone into the pot, The Uninvited is very much a movie of significance. It marks a point in cinematic time when the ghost story proved it could be played for true unnerving impact. It remains a sub-genre of horror that is sorely lacking in bona fide classics, spookers that have longevity, the ability to raise the goose flesh no matter how many times they are revisited. With a new special edition DVD recently released, and the likes of Martin Scorsese and Guillermo del Toro championing its cause by putting it on their lists of favourite frighteners, The Uninvited is proving its worth as an old sub-genre classic. Plot is pretty conventional stuff. It's 1937 and Milland and Hussey play a brother and sister who fall in love with a cliff side house they stumble upon whilst holidaying on the southwest coast of England. Sure enough they snag themselves the house at a ridiculously cheap price, this even though they are warned of some previous disturbances at the address. Cue a mysteriously locked room that when opened reveals itself to be deathly cold, pets that will not go up the stairs and then comes the hauntings... So far so formulaic, then, but as the story begins to unravel in the second half of the movie, where the light touch is left behind, a fizzer of back story comes to the fore and one or two extra surprises leap out of the narrative. This is not lazy plotting, it is well constructed, the mystery element is strong and sidles up nicely with the spooky goings on. "If you listen to it long enough, all your senses are sharpened. You come by strange instincts. You get to recognise a peculiar cold that is the first warning. A cold which is no mere matter of degrees Farenheit, but a draining of warmth from the vital centres of the living." This is a spooker that, unsurprisingly for the time, is devoid of visceral shocks and blunderbuss like scares. This is more about atmosphere (Lang was Oscar nominated for his noirish photography) and fear of the unknown, where the sound of a sobbing woman in the darkness chills the blood. Perhaps surprisingly for the time? We do get to see spectral images, and they still work and create the desired effect, who needs a computer generated image spitting blood when you can have ethereal spookiness floating eerily above the ground? While we are at it, who needs a beefed up pretty boy actor fighting the good fight against evil when you can have an elegant Ray Milland doing it with a glint in his eye instead? The cast are very effective, with Russell really making a mark so early in her career, while Young's score is both sinister and tender (the song Stella by Starlight would become a popular standard) at all the right times. A genuine ghost story for those who prefer the sparing atmospheric touch to the noisy carnage approach. 8/10

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