A Hipócrita

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.

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.

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

It's not until the last 20 minutes with the storm that the movie really takes off. To that point, the pace is leisurely as we watch the manipulative Evelyn burrow her way through the happy household, leaving it a shambles. But, once the storm starts, catch that great cameo shot of an exultant Evelyn (Baxter) at the window as her rival Ann (Warwick) departs, the lightning flashes punctuating her wicked triumph. From then on, it's high Gothic drama and director John Brahm reveling in his atmospheric element-- the crashing waves, the expressive lighting, the heavy emotions. Meanwhile, add this movie to his other two masterpieces of fevered derangement, The Lodger (1944), and Hangover Square (1945).

If ever there was a textbook example of theatrical emoting its Ann Baxter. You can just about see the wheels turning behind that expressive face. Here, however, that tendency to emote works in the character's favor. After all, it's by faking emotions that Evelyn is able to manipulate others. So we see those wheels turning at the same time her victims do not, heightening our involvement. Still, I'm not sure I buy Douglas' (Bellamy) rather obtuse character. He seems a little slow to catch on to situations. But then if he weren't, there wouldn't be much of a story.

Come to think of it-- does the movie end right at the point of a crime being committed? If so, then how did an unpunished crime get past the rules of the Production Code. Anyway, it's an occasionally gripping tale of Gothic madness, thanks to some fine ensemble acting (e.g. the joyous breakfast scene) and director Brahm's real feel for the material.

(In passing—the gorgeous Marie Mc Donald {Miriam} was something of a Lindsey Lohan of her day. One stunt in late 1956 got national notoriety when she faked her kidnapping by turning up in the desert near Palm Springs in a nightgown, claiming she'd been grabbed by two men. Later the episode was exposed as a publicity stunt, but not before ever- enterprising Hollywood types turned the notoriety into a Jane Russell movie, The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown {1957}! Too bad Mc Donald later committed suicide; I think she does quite well in this movie.)

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.