Double Door

Everything about this movie is masterful, from the story to the performances to the costumes to the sets. Charles Vidor did an excellent job of adapting a stage production to the screen. It is appropriately claustrophobic but never stale.

Rip Van Brett (Kent Taylor) is getting married. He comes from one of the oldest established and wealthiest families in New York, so when he chooses a nurse (Evelyn Venable) to be a his bride, his spinster sister Victoria (Mary Morris) is unhappy. She has already foiled one sibling Caroline (Anne Revere) from finding wedded bliss, and she intends to break up her brother's happiness too with her underhanded schemes.

This film was shown at Cinevent 2014, and everyone I knew who saw it at another film festival urged me to see it. Apparently word of mouth spread because the screening was packed. The audience ate it up, to the point that several times people began yelling at the screen. If you ever get a chance to see this, DO NOT miss it.

Victoria van Brett is akin to other matriarches of the thirties;she recalls Mrs Phelps (Laura Hope Crews in "the silver cord" : a woman still in love with her son and who sees her daughter-in -law as an intruder ) and Regina (Bette Davis in Lilian Hellmann 's "little foxes" transferred to the screen by the great Wyler: the graspy greedy businesswoman who does not care for her family).

Mary Morris -in her only screen appearance- is so strong a villain she can effortlessly grab today's audience :although hardly 40 ,she looks at least twenty years older ; her hate for the intruder (her nephew's wife) knows no bounds . A flashback shows us as she used to treat her nephew who has lost any will power (it's his wife who rebels,like Irene Dunne did in "the silver cord") ; and the way she tortures her poor sister Caroline ( a whining Anne Revere, a great character actress )!

With its baroque settings , its Gothic atmosphere , "double door" is almost a horror movie :the scene in which Victoria lures the poor wife into the soundproof room seems out of a fairytale in which the witch (Maleficent in "sleeping beauty" )mesmerizes her victim ; the father's ashes , always here to keep a close watch on the unfortunate Rip .

A black pearl.

The main character here is Mary Moore as Victoria Van Brent, the oldest sister and dominatrix in a family whose only remains are herself, younger sister Caroline, and baby brother Rip. They live together in an old creepy mansion full of reminders of the past but devoid of the present.

Victoria - age unspecified but clearly middle aged- always dresses in black, emotionally batters younger sister Caroline to the point where she is just a shadow of a human being, and has got baby brother Rip convinced that his late father is always looking down on him, and that his wishes are Victoria's wishes.

Let me straighten out one little matter. The synopsis says that the film is about Victoria threatening people with a secret torture chamber in the house. There isn't one, so if you are expecting Vic to go mad and don the red robe of the inquisitors and put somebody on the rack, then you will be sorely disappointed.

The film opens on Rip's wedding day to a "commoner" - a nurse named Ann. Her union to Rip will issue in new blood and life to the family. Victoria has her own idea as to who Rip should marry, and it isn't Ann, whom she assumes is after the family money.

Now this had me wondering, why did Victoria wait until AFTER the wedding to take any action to get rid of Ann? Wouldn't it have been easier if Rip was just beginning to see Ann to nip things in the bud? I guess Victoria figures she can get rid of Ann just as easily after she marries Rip as she could before. Now for a woman to never marry in 1910, the time this film was set, was a big deal and a departure from social norms. But Victoria doesn't seem to hate men, she just loves control. The family money just affords her that control. Marriage at the turn of the 20th century for a woman would mean ceding control, and she was not about to do that.

Victoria starts out with passive aggressive stuff to put a rift between Ann and Rip, but when that doesn't work, she turns to a more severe and permanent solution.

This film has great atmosphere, even if it is a bit claustrophobic. If it didn't say Paramount I'd swear it was a Universal horror with its secret panels and dark corridors. One funny thing about the film - you get a big dose of the thoughts and feelings of everybody in the cast except Victoria, who is the central character. Maybe this is to dehumanize her so the audience can look upon her as pure villain - I know I did.

One bit of trivia - This film was based on a play that was very loosely based on the wealthy Wendel family of 19th and early 20th century New York. The last generation -only the third in fact - consisted of one brother and seven sisters who never married. The brother ruled over the sisters with an iron fist, would not let them socialize or marry because he thought heirs would decentralize their fortune, and did not allow electricity or even a phone into the house. So they all lived together in gloom, prisoners of their wealth until the last sibling died in 1931 leaving a fortune worth 100 million in that day's money - two or three billion today. Ironically, with no direct heirs 2303 people came out of the wood work from all over the world claiming to be heirs including an entire village in Germany named Wendel and some actual distant cousins in Czechoslovakia. Eventually, just about every claim was disproven. However, brother John forgot one thing - if nobody knows what you HAVE been doing, then nobody knows what you HAVEN'T been doing either, thus there were many people among the fortune hunters claiming to be illegitimate children of the recluse siblings.

I'd recommend this old spooky film if it ever comes your way.

1934's Double Door is a real doozy. It's a melodrama, but elements of mystery and horror sneak in periodically. Mary Morris plays a real witch, and you'll love hating her. The cinematography constantly surprises, with plenty of camera movement, weird angles, and under lighting. The acting is good throughout. Double Door isn't horror, but it does create an uneasy atmosphere. Recommended!

From 1934, "Double Door" has one of the most evil characters I've ever seen, Victoria Van Brett (Mary Morris), and a plot that will have you on the edge of your seat, particularly in the last 10 minutes.

Beautiful Evelyn Venable, who was the model for the Columbia Pictures logo, plays Ann Darrow, who marries Victoria's brother Rip (Kent Taylor). Rip, Victoria, and their sister Caroline (Anne Revere) all live in a Fifth Avenue mansion in around 1910.

The family has money, but Victoria controls it and her entire family. She ruins Caroline's chance at happiness by breaking up her relationship, and she works very hard to destroy Rip's marriage. She takes all their wedding gifts, refuses to let the organ play the rest of the bride's entrance, and swaps a $500 set of pearls, an heirloom for the bride, with some cheap necklace. Then she makes them cut their honeymoon short. Ann is determined to be civil to her. You'd need the disposition of a saint.

Caroline is terrified of her, as one time, her sister had closed her up in some kind of vault and keeps threatening to do it again.

Rip and Ann finally have had enough (though I'd say it took Rip an inordinate length of time) and decide to move out. Victoria wants Rip to stay. She comes up with a plan.

This was Anne Revere's film debut after playing the role on Broadway. She's a wonderful actress who has to have big moments of hysteria. I suppose today it seems over the top, but acting was different then. Revere certainly proved herself to be a gifted actress, eventually winning an Oscar.

Mary Morris also did her role on Broadway, and this was her only film. They must have thrown tomatoes at her from the audience when she did the play, not because of her, but because of the character she played.

This is a nerve-wracking film. I highly recommend it.