“We make our own electric light here, and we are not very good at it.  Pray, don’t be alarmed if they go out altogether.”

Should I ever get to meet with a Producer and discuss an idea for a film, here would be my pitch:

We need a biopic about Boris Karloff.

The overall subject has proven popularity.  Both Ed Wood (1994; dir. Tim Burton) and Gods and Monsters (1998; dir. Bill Condon) found critical and popular success, especially after hitting the home video market.  They each won Oscars.  While not about this actor they did look at Bela Lugosi and James Whale respectively, two sides of a still incomplete triangle which can only be finished by looking at Karloff.

And the best part?  Cast Hugh Laurie (TV’s “House”) as Karloff.  He has the look, the talent, the accent and even a bit of the lisp.  He’s perfect.  With the right screenplay and director he would surely win an Academy Award.

Since I brought it up, I suggest Steve Kloves for the screenplay and Martin Scorcese as director.  Their combined love of not only film, but also the creative process would surely draw them to this project.

Trust me.  It’s a good idea.

Just watch Whale’s 1932 film The Old Dark House and you’ll see what I mean.  While it would be easy to compare Karloff’s performance here to his work in Frankenstein (1931; dir. James Whale), to do so would be both unfair and unkind.  Karloff deserves careful viewing.  Granted, in both films he plays a mute with monstrous physicality, but in this film he is no simple-minded innocent newly born to the world, but rather a man with no voice existing with a strong sense of duty and a deep emotional need to be wanted and useful.  He simply can’t express his desires which builds frustration and leads to alcoholism and violence.

But Karloff’s performance is not the only creative achievement in this rich film.

The Story:  Three friends travelling in the English countryside during a torrential rainstorm become stranded overnight at, yep, an old dark house.  Inside the house they find the Femm family, who are all retirement age or older.  No kids.  No lineage.  Be thankful.

And that’s it.  I prefer to focus on a couple of specific moments in the film rather than the whole story.  To say more would be to spoil the experience, and while I always assume you have seen the movie in question, there are just some lines across which I will not go.

If the story sounds familiar, it is.  There are seeds of many other films here, including The Haunting (1963; dir. Robert Wise), and Psycho (1960; dir. Alfred Hitchcock).  But it’s important to remember that this is one of the first films (if not the first sound film) to explore this story.

Never forget the timeframe of a film’s production.   Sound in movies was barely five years old in 1932, so the art of sound effects was literally still in its infancy.  Still, the greatest art often comes from limited resources.  James Whale’s singular ability to constantly thrill audiences was unheard of at the time.  Yet he remained consistent with his talent, creating films we still love today such as Frankenstein (1931), The Invisible Man (1933), and The Bride of Frankenstein (1935).

Observe the sequence in Rebecca Femm’s (Eva Moore) bedroom.  Her room is dark (she doesn’t like electricity) and filled with mirrors that are so old they are warped, creating a funhouse effect when one looks into them.  Whale cuts between the mirrors while Rebecca delivers a fire and brimstone inspired monologue.  So we have her warped face in a mirror and the hellish dialogue.  Now add in the sound of whistling wind in the background.  And don’t forget, there’s another person in the room.  Margaret Waverton (Gloria Stuart) is one of the stranded.  She’s in Rebecca’s bedroom changing out of her wet clothes wearing just her slip, looking and feeling very vulnerable.  Add it up: the warped face; the candle-lit room; the dialogue; the wind; and a mostly naked bystander.  All of these elements work together for less than sixty seconds, but that’s all it takes to create a well-earned moment of suspenseful dread.

Imagine those sixty seconds and know that Whale and his team kept that same level of creativity for the entire running time of 75 minutes, a very standard length back in the early days of sound.

I also have to mention Ernest Thesiger who plays Horace Femm here and would go on to play Dr. Praetorious in The Bride of Frankenstein (1935).  He’s perfect (as always) playing a man so afraid of a person imprisoned somewhere on the mansion’s upper floors that he won’t go upstairs, not even to help other people.

And speaking of the cast, just look at these names:  Melvyn Douglas, Boris Karloff, Gloria Stuart, Ernest Thesiger, Lillian Bond, Eva Moore, Raymond Massey, Elspeth Dudgeon, Bember Wills, and Charles Laughton.  Listing names feels like filler to me, but here I am doing it because it’s that impressive.  You might not know all of them, but you recognize some of them.  They were all familiar faces to audiences in the early 1930’s.

I’m not in the habit of suggesting which movies to see and which to avoid.  Give this one a chance, especially if you’re a fan of Whale’s other horror films.  It represents a creative apex for not only the artists involved, but for early sound films as well.