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An apparently friendly young woman named Evelyn (Anne Baxter) is invited to stay in the family home of her doctor and boyfriend named Proctor(Scott McKay). The female patient Evelyn is really a selfish young , a manipulating babe who hates the birds and with malignant objectives . The-not-so-innocent girl becomes at the beginning an enjoyable guest but she ruthlessly uses everyone in his goals. She skillfully tries to break the familiar harmony. Then , Evelyne falls in love with Douglas Procter (Ralph Bellamy) . He's a good man married Ann(Ruth Warrick) and with a daughter, Douglas dedicates artistic labors painting his model Miriam (Marie McDonald).

The pictures features exceptional work by Anne Baxter , she's magnificently hateful as the insidious Evelyne who attempts to dissect the harmonious group . Her acting result to be a phenomenal precedent to the character she played in ¨All about Eva¨ by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Special mention to Margaret Hamilton , the famous witch from ¨The wizard of Oz¨ as a snooper maid and of course Aline MacMahon as the spinster aunt Martha , she's also worthy in a razor-sharp performance. Furthermore, a beautifully cinematography in subdued black and white by Lee Garmes, Atmospheric and appropriate musical score by Werner Janssen.

The motion picture is well directed by John Brahm (1893-1982). He was a German-born director who worked in the theatre for nearly 20 years before attempting his hand at movies. Later on, he had an initial work in England and after that he went to Hollywood where Brahm converted himself an efficient filmmaker of variety of routine mid-budget movies until 1944/45 when he directed two magnificent suspense movies with Laird Cregar : ¨The Lodger¨and ¨Hangover square¨ and a splendid drama ¨Guest in the house¨, the three full of atmosphere, intrigue and a sense of imminent tension. Later on he continued working almost entirely in TV but never again finding his previous inspiration .Rating : Better than average , worthwhile seeing.

This is "Shadow of a Doubt" meets "The Women." It's as if it had been produced by Val Lewton, particularly in the early, ambiguous scenes. And it does feature two of Orson Welles's players: Anne Baxter as the title character and Ruth Warrick as her hostess.

Warrick and husband Ralph Bellamy agree to give some country air to a troubled young woman. Bellamy is a painter. Marie McDonald is his model. Without giving too much away, Baxter reacts to her with the fiery prudishness of a Jack the Ripper. She's shocked; she's appalled.

That marvelous character actress Aline MacMahon is the family aunt. She gets third billing and plays a central role. And she is superb --often framed between other characters, looking out wisely. Her face could register pain and restfulness at the same time.

The film was beautifully shot by the great Lee Garmes. It's directed well by John Brahm.

At times, it grows overheated. But for the most part it is subtle and unnerving.

A naive psychiatrist brings his former patient, Evelyn Heath (Anne Baxter), to his cliff-side country home to meet the family before they tie the knot. The good doctor's Aunt Martha (Aline MacMahon), his artist brother, Douglas (Ralph Bellamy), Douglas' wife (Ruth Warrick) and daughter do everything they can to make the mentally unstable Evelyn feel at home but underneath her fragile exterior lurks a manipulative minx who wants the home for herself. Evelyn sets her romantically obsessive sights on Douglas, running off his model (Marie McDonald) and taking her place before tearing the household apart until one member takes matters into their own hands...

Told in flashback (with brief voice-over narration) this slightly stagy Hunt Stromberg-produced "domestic noir" was one of the first of a spate of films reflecting the era's budding fascination with psychiatry. Adapted from a hit Broadway play and directed with style by German-born John Brahm, there's a claustrophobic mansion, thunderstorms, a crashing sea below, and ever-present shadows all moodily photographed by Lee Garmes to an Oscar-nominated score. Anne Baxter, in a forerunner to ALL ABOUT EVE, is effective as a pathologically neurotic snake-in-the-grass with solid support from character actors Margaret "Wizard Of Oz" Hamilton and Percy "Pa Kettle" Kilbride as the household help. There's also a bit of wartime-liness as the story can be seen as metaphor for "fighting fire with fire" when an enemy threatens hearth and home. Director John Brahm, who fled Nazi Germany in 1937, helmed this film for United Artists between his two 20th Century Fox Period Noirs, THE LODGER (1944) and HANGOVER SQUARE (1945). Sexy Marie McDonald got her nickname "The Body" during production and eventually killed herself. GUEST IN THE HOUSE, with its dark and rather drastic ending, is a little seen and rarely discussed early noir that should be more accessible.

Noirometer: Although only semi-satisfying for some reason, this moody melodrama boasts a deceptively destructive femme fatale, some unhinged histrionics, a German-trained director, daytime shadows on restricted wartime sets, poetic retribution, and a bit of Freud. A house-guest-from-Hell plot line was later given another workout in Nicolas Ray's camp-noir BORN TO BE BAD (1950). 7/10

Publicity:

The Boldest Love Story Ever Told!

From the daring Broadway stage hit... Hunt Stromberg has made a daring picture

The story of a lovely girl driven by strange desires... and the emotions she unleashes in the lives of gay and charming people

Hadn't seen this one before and was pleasantly surprised. It is longer than almost all the others in the DVD collection but is well worth the time.

A nutty woman is brought to the family home to recuperate from a breakdown of some sort and is plainly unfit to be released into normal society. She then proceeds to wreak havoc on all concerned and nearly succeeds in wrecking the host family.

But you have to assume a great deal and swallow a lot of credibility to make it work. She is unbalanced and no one notices or doesn't care; the male lead cavorts with his artist model for prolonged periods and no one raises an eyebrow, so laden with integrity is he; she persuades her fiancée/doctor to leave town to hasten her recovery(!); and so on.

All concerned turn in good performances. Dependable Ralph Bellamy is just that, and Aline McMahon is a cut above the rest. The pivotal character is Anne Baxter's and I don't agree with the majority that she was over-the-top - she is playing a neurotic which justifies her unsettling, oblong portrayal. How else to illustrate that she doesn't fit in? A good picture - albeit stagebound - that does not warrant all the complaints and criticisms. Give it a chance.

I saw GUEST IN THE HOUSE one late night and I was surprised by how good this forgotten film was. The story is classic story of a stranger entering the lives of a family or closely knit group living under one roof and how their lives are changed by the ways of this newcomer. TEOREMA is a modern example of such a story. In GITH, Evelyn is the new guest who nearly destroys the idyllic existence of a group's mundane lives, including a married couple and their precocious girl. Evelyn specifically has eyes on the husband, who happens to be the brother of her boyfriend, a man she doesn't really love but who helped when she had a nervous breakdown. Evelyn is, needless to say, neurotic with a capital N. She also has a bizarre phobia of birds. Eventually the people living in the house slowly realize what's going on and how Evelyn is manipulating everyone, which leads to a truly memorable and tragic ending.

Some have criticized GITH for the cast of characters being so blind to Evelyn's ways but for me it's the opposite. The film or script's slow methodical built-up was very mature and not over-the-top melodramatic as most films were in those days. I'm not saying the film is not melodramatic. It is but I enjoyed seeing the way everything slowly unraveled. During a big chunk of the film, Evelyn is not even present. In other words, the film is not just an "Evelyn the Neurotic Bitch" show but an ensemble cast, with Evelyn being the most memorable character.

What's really great about GUEST IN THE HOUSE is that it's filmed like a fevered dream: the low ceilings, the tight quarters of the house, the claustrophobic quality of the direction, the way Evelyn reads her diary, the atmospheric cinematography and music, all add to an entertaining quasi-Gothic film.

The actors are all excellent, including Anne Baxter, whom I usually do not like, and one of the reasons why I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this film. What's also striking about her role in GUEST IN THE HOUSE is that it's oddly identical to the Eve Harrington character Anne played 7 years later in ALL ABOUT EVE. In my opinion, Anne is much better here and creates a truly memorable character. In ALL ABOUT EVE, Anne was too robotic and monotonous, she lacked the passion and strive she displayed in GUEST OF THE HOUSE. As Evelyn, Anne shamelessly overacts and slithers about like a panther but always staying in character of a neurotic woman, which, thankfully, is never played to the point of being politically incorrect.

All in all, I highly recommend this hidden gem. Because the film is in public domain, finding a good DVD transfer is almost impossible. But even the terrible version I viewed didn't diminish its entertaining qualities.

A psychiatrist bring his fianceé -- a former patient -- back to his family house, and she proceeds with a plan of homewrecking. Anne Baxter, several years before ALL ABOUT EVE, is great as another manipulative, conniving and more than a little unstable femme fatale. There is a significantly longer version of this film, but getting the shorter one was probably for the best. The first two acts are a bit sluggish and repetitive, but things really ramp up for the finale. Brahm brings the same Gothic gloom as he did in his period noirs THE LODGER and HANGOVER SQUARE, as the residence gets more and more claustrophobic and ruled by shadows. There's some wonderful framing technique at play, often emphasizing Baxter's control over the household. Supporting performances are generally quite good, with especially good turns from Aline MacMahon and Marie McDonald (like Marilyn, a bombshell blonde with a knack for comedy, but a tragic life ending in a bottle of pills). The film could use some higher stakes and a little more zip, but it has some mighty fine elements.

Many IMDb luminaries have written very good analyses of this movie and its relationship to Ms. Baxter's Oscar-Winning performance in All About Eve. And surely, at least in hindsight, Guest in the House is one of the vehicles that delivered Baxter to what many consider to be her masterwork. Since I am not an expert on Ms. Baxter or All About Eve, I do not wish to contribute either negatively or positively to that discussion. Instead, I will review Guest in the House (AKA Satan in Skirts) as an example of what it historically was - a disturbing, suspenseful and unusual film noir.

Baxter's character - Evelyn Heath - is, of course, the central element in this single-set piece. Ms Heath is a pretty young thing whose grace, beauty and charm thinly mask the truth. In fact, Ms. Heath is a manipulative, emotionally unbalanced sociopath. Unlike most noir film's the nature of the protagonist is revealed to the audience in the first few scenes as she enters the House Proctor with Fiancé Doctor Dan (Scott McKay) and immediately sets her sights on the older, married, artist and head of the household - Douglas (Ralph Bellamy). Evelyn allegedly has a heart condition and is engaged to Dan - a hard working doctor. Dan has set her up in the family home to rest and recuperate. So it's not hard to imagine why the rest of the family does not expect a thing, even after Evelyn encourages Dan to depart for the remainder of the summer and begins subtly sowing the seeds of suspicion and jealousy around her prey.

The Proctor family begins unraveling with the puritanical servants (nicely played by Margaret Hamilton and Percy Kilbride) and young Lee (Connie Laird) - who are the most vulnerable characters. As the accusations begin, each character falls under Evelyn's diabolical enchantment - with the exception of Aunt Martha (Alice MacMahon), Douglas's world-weary spinster of a sister.

If this all sounds atypical for noir - it should. John Brahm's parlor play A Guest in The House, is not a run-of-the-mill noir in most respects. The film is dark only in the figurative sense, most of the plot is transparent, the lines of good and evil are clearly defined, and there is neither a car nor a murder weapon anywhere in sight. Perhaps most remarkable is the fact that the entire film takes place in one set - a large house on the rocky coast of New England. But in intensity, fatalism and theme, A Guest in the House is entirely film noir. There are two significant noir ingredients which also appear, but I won't given them away so that I can avoid presenting a spoiler.

Journeyman Director John (or Hans) Brahm is probably best known to American audiences for having directed the well-regarded Twilight Zone episode "Time Enough at Last". His long and modestly prolific career (35 years and somewhat fewer features) could be characterized as wandering or - more positively - diverse. He dabbled in religion (Our The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima), Psychological Horror (The Lodger), pulp action (Hotrods to Hell) and even Westerns (Face to Face), yet managed to bring a respectable quality to all of his efforts. That quality is present in A Guest in the House. And the director deserves some praise for pulling off a film which successfully challenges the experimental boundaries of what was, at the time of its production, a very popular genre.

The cast is superb and the casting is perfect. The film is well- directed, although at times the pace is a little difficult. And the story-line is interesting but disturbing enough to put off many if not most. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for its good, though not very memorable, score.

Despite my respect for this film, however, I can only modestly promote it. Most audiences will not have the patience to endure the entire film and will fail to recognize the transparency of the plot as an important departure from its genre. Keep this warning in mind if you decide to give it a go. The ending is well worth the wait and may not be what you expect.

I bought this as part of a 'Film Noir' collection, to which it most certainly does not rightly belong. This is melodrama with Gothic overtones and unfortunately has a very slow and boring first third. Things begin to get going and eventually the film is moving the way it should have from the start. The dialogue is average, there are far too many characters and only Anne Baxter shines. I'm not a fan of Ralph Bellamy and the 'dope' that he invariably seems to play. Strangely enough at the start of this when everyone is dull, he is fine but gradually he gets around to playing the dumb guy once again. In the end this is not without interest and all Baxter fans should see it, if only for her most her devilish performance. Non aficionados may wish to avoid, or at least cross it off any 'noir' list.

Six years before entering film history in the title role of All About Eve – as duplicitous, back-stabbing ingenue Eve Harrington – Ann Baxter took a trial run in John Brahm's Guest in the House. Her character proves to be even more spiteful, that of a malingering but controlling waif in whose mouth a pat of butter would stay as hard and cold as her supposedly bum ticker.

Under the care of her young and smitten doctor, Ann arrives in the home of his extended family somewhere on the New England coast (high cliffs, crashing waves) for a recuperative summer. Once settled in the guest room, she takes to her bed and her phonograph on which she plays – shades again of All About Eve – `Liebestraum' over and over. She also sends her doting doctor packing, having set her snood for his older, married artist brother Ralph Bellamy. And then she calculatedly proceeds to tyrannize the entire household, sending away seriatim the domestic help (Margaret Hamilton and Percy Kilbride), Bellamy's live-in model, and, ultimately, Bellamy's wife (Ruth Warrick) and young daughter.

Of course, Baxter's illness afflicts not so much her heart as her mind. Along with her luggage she unpacks a lovingly tended collection of phobias (the one to birds proves pivotal) and a high-maintenance Borderline Personality Disorder. And, again of course, summer turns into a cold, forbidding fall before any member of the household picks up on the clues and holds her responsible for the dysfunction she has unleashed on the household. But at long last the worms begins to turn....

Guest in the House is really a parlor melodrama from a script by Ketti Frings, who would go on to write half a dozen or so noir screenplays. This one starts off slowly but once it gets underway it holds interest (it's a full two-hour movie, too). John Brahm, another emigre director from Europe who could be counted upon to produce craftsmanlike if not inspired work, stays in his element here, barely moving from the claustrophobic confines of the big old house and pulling out all the stops on the gothic organ: thunder and lightning, hurricane lamps, the sweeping beam of a lighthouse flooding the rooms then vanishing.

The cast acquits itself admirably as well. Though Bellamy's bumbling male seems a bit at odds with his supposedly artistic temperament, Ruth Warrick (the first Mrs. Charles Foster Kane) adroitly underplays, letting second-string players like Hamilton and Kilbride ham it up; another shrewd underplayer is Aline McMahon, as spinsterish Aunt Martha, who hides her light under a bushel until finally letting it flare. That leaves Baxter as the central character, onto whom we tumble early by virtue of having seen the way she works as Eve Harrington (an advantage they didn't have in 1944). Guest in the House strains our credulity a bit but stays a surprisingly effective and moody melodrama.

GUEST IN THE HOUSE is the sort of psychological Gothic melodrama Hollywood discovered in the early '40s, usually films based on equally melodramatic stage plays. (Think "The Two Mrs. Carrolls" or "Uncle Harry" or "Ladies in Retirement"). But it's a very stage-bound version of a talky Broadway play and ANNE BAXTER had not yet refined her acting technique, in the role of a psychotic who enjoyed manipulating the lives of everyone around her.

Her phobia to birds is rather effectively done, but it's hard to understand why the household members don't catch on to her deceitful ways a bit sooner. RALPH BELLAMY is in good form as the man she has designs on, for once a leading man and not "the other guy" and RUTH WARRICK is effective as his understanding wife.

The other performances range from incompetent to hammy--as essayed by MARGARET HAMILTON, PERCY KILBRIDE and MARIE ("The Body") McDONALD, a glamor girl out of her depth in a pivotal role.

Overall, it's a nice try at maintaining interest throughout two hours of running time, but somewhere along the way credibility is stretched to the max and Baxter's overwrought performance doesn't help.

The background score by Werner Janssen won an Oscar nomination, curiously enough.

In the past few years I've made an effort to see a number of lesser-known movies that received Academy Award nominations. One of them is John Brahm's "Guest in the House" (nominated for the musical score).

Anne Baxter plays a character similar to her later role in "All About Eve", as she ingratiates herself into her fiance's family's life. Sure enough, her aims are less than noble. Despite the household's wholesome appearance, some intense things are going to arise.

With most of the setting indoors, the movie has a claustrophobic feeling. It's as if at any moment, everything's going to come crashing down. I suspect that it was like that for a reason. This is one movie where the setting and cinematography do as much to tell the story as does the cast. Not a masterpiece, but worth seeing.

This film begins with a young physician named "Dr. Dan Proctor" (Scott McKay) bringing his fiancé "Evelyn Heath" (Anne Baxter) to the home of his brother "Douglas Proctor" (Ralph Bellamy) where she can recover from a terrible ordeal. Along with his wife "Ann Proctor" (Ruth Warrick) there are several other people who reside with Douglas to include his daughter "Lee Proctor" (Connie Laird), his aunt "Martha Proctor" (Aline MacMahon) and several members of the household staff. Additionally, since Douglas makes a living sketching models for various magazines like Cosmopolitan there is a very attractive young woman by the name of "Miriam" (Marie McDonald) staying there as well. In all, it's a lively home where everybody gets along well with each other-and then Evelyn arrives. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was an interesting film which encompassed solid actors and a story that builds upon itself to inevitably reach its rather dramatic conclusion. The problem is that the plot moves a bit too slowly at first and the character development could have also used some improvement. Bet that as it may, I enjoyed the film for the most part and for that reason have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.

Guest in the House is directed by John Brahm and adapted to screen by Ketti Frings from the play written by Hagar Wilde, Dale Eunson and Katherine Albert. It stars Anne Baxter, Ralph Bellamy, Aline MacMahon, Ruth Warrick and Scott McKay. Music is by Werner Janssen and cinematography by Lee Garmes.

The Proctor family take on more than they bargained for when Evelyn Heath (Baxter) comes to stay with them.

Given the quality of cast and with the strength of Brahm and Garmes on the camera side of things, this really should have been a top tier psychological thriller. Sadly, in spite of much to keep it above average, it ends up as a melodramatic pot boiler that never quite comes to the boil.

Essentially the pic is framed around Baxter's troubled Evelyn, who is up to no good, where mischief making is the order of the day. Her motives are sketchy and her neurotic kinks are never fully formed except to give us some closure at pic's denouement. Things aren't helped by the fact Evelyn is just not a character to either sympathise with, or to even feel unnerved by since her shenanigans are not gripping and even come off as a little daft.

The male leads are poorly written, chauvinistic leanings boorish in the grand scheme of "outing" Evelyn as the sexual aggressor. While some of the histrionics on show from Baxter are hard to buy into. On the plus side the pic looks great, with Garmes (Nightmare Alley) managing to create moody ambiance in what is a stage bound play, and although I found Janssens' music score to be too jaunty at times, there's no denying the quality of arrangement (Oscar Nominated).

You have to look to the supporting players for quality (MacMahon and Warrick), and admire some technical craft for comfort. But ultimately it's a missed opportunity for potency, whilst some of the contrivances and character portrayals date the story badly. 6/10

This is a rare film unlike all others in its very carefully studied psychology, made almost like a documentary, but at the same time it is a thriller which constantly grows more exciting and has a dramatic climax for a finale with the unexpected reappearance of the bird problem, which is what finally gets the better of the intelligent and expertly manipulative Anne Baxter in one of her most typical and horrible roles, and she is too good at it. Ralph Bellamy as a perfectly frank and honest artist, always speaking his mind freely and acting spontaneously, is her counterpart, falling for her tricks to begin with but always realizing his mistakes. The one film that this reminds of is Hitchcock's "Shadow of a Doubt" of the same year, also an intricate study in the mechanisms of a manipulative mind too clever for his own kin. The one scene that sticks the strongest to my mind is when Evelyn Heath (Anne Baxter) opens the window to let in the storm and at the same time spy the departure of Ann Proctor with vicious triumph. It's a great film, it can't be denied, a chamber and family domestic drama, but in curiously extremely romantic stage settings by the sea in Maine enhanced by the expertly suggestive music, adding depth to every scene of dramatic impact. The most shocking scenes are always with the girl, how Anne Baxter infernally starts using her for her schemes and then stops at nothing. It is actually a horror thriller of high psychological documentary value, with a warning for all times, to beware and never recognize a psychopath too late.

Pretty choppy sound, picture, and editing in this oldie from United Artists. Some big names in here, too. Anne Baxter will be best known for All about Eve; Aline MacMahon was always the mother or kind old aunt. Percy Kilbride was Pa Kettle. of course, Margaret Hamilton (the Wicked Witch!) is in here as the maid. Ralph Bellamy and Ruth Warrick were hollywood regulars. In the story, Evelyn (Baxter) moves in with a couple to recuperate, and completely disrupts the house. One odd thing.. during the opening credits, and through-out the film, there are bright lights then darkness at the windows... do they live on a corner or something, where the car headlights were shining in ? and later, one of the women keeps flicking the light on and off...what the ?? and four directors listed, although only one was credited. that can't be good. and it's pretty long, at 121 minutes. kind of goes on and on. All those big names, and it never really gels. no chemistry. Looks like some of it was filmed at the Providencia Ranch lots, which itself had an interesting history. Another fun connection to All About Eve... Anne Baxter is also the star of that, and in that film, they ALSO keep playing Liebestraum at Margo's cocktail party. The best performances here come from Kilbride and Hamilton, the butler and the maid!! script needed tightening up or something. Very similar plot to Harriet Craig, and that one is so much better.

"Guest in the House" belongs to that period in which Hollywood discovered Freud and produced such films as "Spellbound" and "Shadow of a Doubt." But unlike those films, here the Freud is watered down to grade-school level, beginning with another unprofessional shrink who falls in love with the patient.

"Guest in the House" also belongs to the evil-woman sub-genre of Film Noir. As the titular heroine, Anne Baxter's Evelyn is cousin to Merle Oberon in "Temptation," Joan Fontaine in "Ivy," Ann Todd in "Madeleine," and Susan Peters in "The Sign of the Ram." There's one major difference: while the others gave restrained performances, Baxter wildly overacted. One hesitates to blame Baxter since she more than demonstrated her abilities in such films as "The Magnificent Ambersons," "The Razor's Edge," and "All About Eve," but here she is way over the top. The fault must lie with the director or directors who seem to have given her no help at all, but then, the film had a troubled production history, with at least three directors and as many screenwriters having a hand in it.

Also in the cast are Ralph Bellamy, Ruth Warrick, Margaret Hamilton, Percy Kilbride, and Marie "The Body" McDonald; the latter would have done better to spend her money on acting lessons rather than self-promotion Perhaps the real problem is that the film is studio or stage bound. Since "Guest in the House" is based on a play, one might expect it to have been opened out when it made the transition to film, but except for a few very brief outdoor scenes, the film is all interiors. Evelyn's comeuppance, for instance, is revealed only in a reaction shot by Aline MacMahon. Still, if you remember the film from childhood or the airing a decade or so ago on the Nostalgia Channel, you'll probably stick with it to the end despite the full-plate of ham.