Medo Que Domina

Gail Russell becomes governess to Joel McCrea's two motherless children. McCrea is a moody fellow. He gets sleeping pills from neighborhood doctor Herbert Marshall, and says that his children were spoiled by their unseen grandmother. The girl, Nona Griffith, is a sweet little thing, but the boy, Richard Lyon, takes a dislike to Miss Russell, seems to have a lot of money, and makes phone calls he says he didn't. Miss Griffith also tries to keep secrets. The house is an old, gloomy, run-down place, and after midnight there are signs that there's some stranger there.

It's an Old Dark House movie, and the unraveling of its mysteries make up the bulk of its length. Miss Russell goes through the movie with an expression of wide-eyed innocence that formed the basis of her star persona in this period. She stands in for the audience as a spectator to the disquieting behavior around her. McCrea shows that his distracted comedy shtick can be applied to drama as well.

Despite Raymond Chandler being one of the screen writers of this movie, I thought it depended far more on the atmosphere of the movie than the substance of its plot. Director Lewis Allen and cinematographer John Seitz offer that in gobs, and the actors so their jobs well enough to provide a good movie, if the audience be willing. It's an efficient studio picture that kept me interested through the end.

This picture has been on TV but I hadn't seen it before. I disagree with some reviewers and I thought it was a first-rate mystery but which was marred by a confusing ending. There was a rush to explain motivations and circumstances, all of which left me further in the dark than before.

The cast was just fine and the tragic Gail Russell was lovely to look at, although lacking some depth as an actress. The dependable Herbert Marshall lends strong support and Joel McCrea is his usual stalwart self. There is a lot to like here until you get to the last 5 minutes; hasty contrivances and omitted rationale are always annoying. Shown at Capitolfest, Rome, NY, 8/19.

******* 7/10 - Website no longer prints my star rating.

Unlike what some sites say, "The Unseen" has nothing to do with "The Uninvited," which also starred Gail Russell. I suspect Paramount was just trying to get more traction out of the success of that movie. The Unseen also stars Joel McCrea, Herbert Marshall, Isobel Elsom, and Norman Lloyd.

Russell plays Elizabeth, the new governess for the two young children of a widower (David Fielding). The film begins with a murder being committed outside their house, and the victim drops her watch. When Elizabeth arrives, the murder has made the front page of the paper, and people are nervous.

Odd things go on, mostly having to do with the young boy, Barnaby, who makes mysterious phone calls, seems to have more money than he should, and also unlocks the door for someone every night. Meanwhile the house next door has been boarded up for 12 years, adding to a tense and mysterious atmosphere.

This movie is disjointed, with zero character development and rather surprising things not questioned or pursued, almost as if parts of the script was missing.

It's hard to watch the beautiful Gail Russell and realize the downward turn her life was already taking. Lots of sad Hollywood stories, but I'd put hers, Susan Peter's, and Sharon Tate's on top. Unlike Tate and Peters, though, Russell never intended to be an actress. Her beauty didn't go unnoticed once her family arrived in California, and they desperately needed the money a contract would bring. She was too nervous and fragile, and by the age of 36, she was dead from acute alcoholism.

Russell is much stronger as an actress that she was in The Uninvited - it's also a more forceful kind of role. However, it's obvious she's grown from experience after doing several films. McCrea is rather stiff (it's just that kind of role). He probably had to take the role to fulfill his contract.

I saw a bad print so the end was like watching a black screen, but I had the goings-on figured out - too many years of watching this type of film.

In an older London neighborhood beset with strange deaths and a spooky, abandoned house with boarded-up windows, Gail Russell arrives via Boston to accept job as governess to widower Joel McCrea's two precocious kids; quickly, she begins to realize McCrea's little boy is in-cahoots with the previous nanny and may be covering up a dangerous plot which ties in with the old house--and also with McCrea, whose mysterious comings and goings spell trouble. Over-plotted and yet ultimately slim-seeming co-feature from Paramount, stiffly directed and not very exciting. Heavy-lidded Russell, fresh off her triumph in "The Uninvited", was never an exceptional actress, but here she gives hint she may have become a very good one, and her terse exchanges with McCrea show a much more confident performer than in "The Uninvited". The screenplay, adapted from Ethel Lina White's novel "Her Heart in Her Throat", falls rather early into a disparaging rut, what with Russell continually reporting peculiar happenings to people who don't believe or listen to her, and that final clinch nearly comes out of nowhere. However, for fans of 1940s potboilers like the not-dissimilar "Gaslight", this provides minor enjoyment. ** from ****

A governess walks into a situation that tests her mettle. The father is cold and unfriendly and while she makes friends with the little girl, the boy immediately despises her. The pacing is weak and the plot rather stretched, but it keeps one's interest. There is some gaslighting going on, but mostly its a very basic mystery. The little boy is really quite good in his derisive role. Some of the significant events unfold too fast and we really don't understand why people keep coming and going.