Kind Lady

I enjoy watching a lot of older movies. Most suspense films that have caught my eye are in part comedies. This one has an intensity that I seldom see in this period. The other reviews have done a super job of describing the performers, so no more here.

The story is so well done that it is almost painful to experience -- the feelings are .. don't do that .. how can they treat her the way they do .. why isn't someone helping .. etc, etc. Whether you will be able to 'enjoy' this production, may be part of your own preference, but everyone that has selected movies to watch from this period needs to watch this one.

ALINE MacMAHON and BASIL RATHBONE star in this early screen version of KIND LADY, given a remake in the 1950s, from a stage play.

MacMahon is the kindly woman who lives alone in a large house surrounded by handsome and expensive artifacts. On Christmas Eve, she gives a man shelter. The man (Rathbone) turns out to be a scam artist who doesn't fool the hired help but makes a complete fool out of MacMahon, soon ushering in all of his gang members and threatening to kill MacMahon if she doesn't cooperate with their schemes.

Extremely well done, with MacMahon giving one of her best screen performances in the title role. Rathbone is chilling as the intelligent thief intent on moving in and making a fortune by selling most of her possessions.

Interesting story gets fine treatment from the entire cast, including FRANK ALBERTSON as the nephew who suspects something is wrong, DUDLEY DIGGES and DONALD MEEK. MURRAY KINNELL, posing as the doctor, is smoothly villainous. So is Rathbone as the man behind the schemes.

Chilling and well worth watching.

Interesting to note that Edward Ward wrote the background score (composer for the 1943 "Phantom of the Opera"), which is given more prominence than usual in a film from this period and sets the tone for the Christmas setting at the story's start.

"Kind Lady" is based on a stage play. This version stars Aline MacMahon, Basil Rathbone, Nola Luxford, Mary Carlisle, and Donald Meek. It was remade with Ethel Barrymore and Maurice Evans in 1951.

"Kind Lady" is the story of Mary Herries, a wealthy British woman who takes pity on a starving artist, Henry Abbott (Rathbone), his wife, and baby and take them in. Her home and life are soon taken over by Abbott and his gang, and Mary is a prisoner in her own home while she is gradually robbed.

Somehow, with a younger Mary and Henry, this film has a different and better dynamic, although the denouement in the 1951 film is more interesting than the ending here. Here, Mary still has the possibility of romance in her life, and though it isn't explored (or, given the class distinctions, probably not even a thought), there is some chemistry in the beginning between Mary and the debonair, dashing Rathbone.

Aline MacMahon, normally in character roles, is excellent as Mary, a formal though generous and honest woman who cares for the less fortunate. Rathbone is dastardly and smooth as silk as Henry, whose aggressiveness becomes apparent almost immediately as he pressures Mary into buying one of his ugly paintings.

This version is a little less cruel in its treatment of poor Mary, who seems to have the freedom to move around; in the '51 version, she doesn't, and Henry actually does her portrait.

Both films are very good, as it's a strong story, but the '51 comes out as slightly superior. I did love this cast, though.

I suspect that most film fans are familiar with Ethel Barrymore's portrayal of the rich spinster woman whose house is taken over by a gang of grifters. This earlier version with Aline McMahon in the title role is not that often shown. That is a pity because McMahon is just wonderful in the role. It also apparently set a pattern for her playing woman older than herself.

In the tradition of no good deed goes unpunished McMahon finds a starving a pitiful artist on the doorstep of her London townhouse. That is Basil Rathbone who presents such a pitiful figure that she takes him in. Pretty soon he's got himself a wife and baby there and gradually takes over the running of the house. A whole bunch of others move in to take over the various servant positions including Dudley Digges, Murray Kinnell, Eily Malyon, Justine Chase, and Barbara Shields.

It's alluded to, but never rightly said that this group has worked this game before of systematically looting a place and then moving on. We know that these people are not above murder to achieve their ends.

The women of the group are a low class group of scavengers, the men however Rathbone, Digges, and Kinnell exude an air of menace in their performances. They've really covered all bases, keeping McMahon a prisoner in her own home with no contact with the outside world. To the outside world the story was given out that she had gone to America.

Sometimes a film like this even with no unearthly creatures in the story can step over into the horror film genre. This is what Kind Lady does, these grifters are not lovable con artists, they are more frightening than any kind of ghoul because they are real.

Fans of Aline McMahon and Basil Rathbone should catch this one.

...to see Aline MacMahon, the great character actress, in a lead role. As a tender benefactress who unwisely invites a suave beggar (Basil Rathbone) into her gracious home on Christmas Eve, she effortlessly plays beyond her years and even suggests an inner life--you can see her past regrets, her essential goodness, and her cunning, all in her eyes. The rest of this ungainly comedy-suspense melodrama, adapted from a musty stage play, is boilerplate and frequently illogical; the compressed "stage time" is overused to skirt plot implausibilities, the ending is rushed, and leave it to the callow American (Frank Albertson) to get the dumb Brits out of their scrape, MGM-style. Hitchcock could have made the material work, and George B. Seitz is decidedly not Hitchcock. But it's a handsome programmer, told economically, with two great cinematic supporting players being given unusual chances to strut their stuff.