Double Door

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.

"Double Door" focuses on Anne, a young bride in turn-of-the-century Manhattan who finds herself at the mercy of her husband's embittered, older half-sister, Victoria, who controls the family estate with an iron fist. Anne at first attempts to win her new sister-in-law over, but finds that Victoria's manipulation and scare tactics could be lethal.

This dour adaptation of the stage play of the same name (and featuring two stage originals: Mary Morris and Anne Revere) works for two reasons: One, the night-and-day performances from Evelyn Venable, playing the innocent Anne, and Mary Morris, the wretched and vindictive sister-in-law; and two, the sprawling mansion setting, which provides an ominous, classically spooky backdrop for the psychological games to unfold (think "The Old Dark House", but on Fifth Avenue).

Morris, a stage actor who only ever appeared on film here, is the main attraction for most, and while her theatrical style at times pokes through, she is still fiercely effective in this role--the character of Victoria belongs in the ranks of the most wicked female villains in film history, up there with Annie Wilkes, Alex Forrest, and Mrs. Danvers. She is vile, greedy, and controlling, and Morris wrings every last drop of these character elements. Venable plays counterpoint as the likable newcomer who at first hopes to see some good in Victoria, only to find her relentless abuses too much to bear, while Anne Revere is memorable as Victoria's downtrodden sister who has been terrorized by Victoria her entire life (even being locked in a soundproof vault as "punishment").

The majority of the film consists of a back-and-forth dynamic between the Victoria and Anne before it ratchets up in the last act to a quasi-murder mystery, with Victoria's confounding propensity for evil reaching its apparent peak. There is a notable mix of melodrama here with psychological thriller elements and, at times, horror, though for most modern audiences, "Double Door" will play more like a straightforward psychological drama soaked in gloom. As a character showcase of exemplary wickedness, "Double Door" is among the best pre-Code examples. 8/10.

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!

This is an ordinary chamber play all taking place in one house, but it is astoundingly efficient especially staged on film that by appalling close-ups turns it into one of the ghastliest nightmares ever rendered alive, mainly because of perhaps the grisliest female characters in film history played by Mary Morris in all too convincing horror. She is just a kind old lady that wishes everybody well, no one can but believe the best of her, everyone trusts her, but she has an obsession: a heritage of a precious pearl necklace, that she doesn't want to part with, when her younger brother imperils her control of the estate when he marries, so she does anything to prevent that marriage, in a positive warfare campaign of intrigues verging on virtuosity. It's a masterful play, and its screening does it more than justice, as Charles Vidor successfully underscores and enhances all the effects, that constantly keep piling up to ever more overwhelming strokes of innovation. No wonder the play kept Broadway on edge. In character it reminds a little of J. B. Priestley's "An Inspector Calls", but this is much more gruesome. In short. It's a killer.

Victoria Van Brett (Mary Morris) is a horrible, bitter old woman. She also happens to be rich and in control of the family fortune....and she uses it to control and torment her family. When her niece and nephew try to marry, she does her best to break up the relationships. Why? Well, because she can...and because she enjoys destroying people. But how far she is willing to go....that might just shock you!

This is an incredible film. The opening credits are among the most jarring I've ever seen. You hear Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D minor" and as you hear this creepy music play, scary faces of the folks who star in the film appear abruptly and fly towards the audience in closeups. You really have to see it to appreciate how jarring it is and I actually yelled out when the faces appeared!

The shame of this film is that Ms. Morris only made one film...this one. Otherwise, her acting was confined to the stage...which is a real shame as she was amazing. One of the creepiest and most evocative performances of the 1930s...that is how good she was.

Overall, this is a seldom seen but fantastic movie...one that you won't soon forget....especially when it comes to that double door!