A somewhat murky thriller which sees director Lewis Allen paired with Gail Russell again after their previous collaboration in "The Uninvited" the year before.
This time she plays a governess to the two infant children of widower Joel McCrae in his big dark house. Unfortunately, its location is right next door to an old murder location, which soon enough becomes a new murder location with the original killer returning to the scene of the crime to cover his tracks. To help do this, he bribes the young son who offers him easy access to the murder house by conveniently leaving the kitchen door open at the dead of night.
McCrae is initially severe on Russell, but in time-honoured fashion he later softens towards her and of course she falls for him too, even as the finger of suspicion seems to point towards him. Also on hand is Herbert Marshall's goodly-seeming family doctor and long-standing friend to McCrae. With Miss Russell required to run up, down and around the dark old house in confusion, all the while trying to win over the hostile children and coldly severe McCrae, it seems as if only the warm-hearted doctor is her only ally but things change and all is revealed when the murderer turns up one last time to tie up all the loose ends, although not in the way he'd have hoped.
The great Raymond Chandler helped with the script here which might explain one or two of the plot twists and director Allen certainly cloaks his production with lots of gloom and shadow, perhaps too much, but the narrative seems very derivative and second-hand and one doesn't really detect the hand of Chandler in any of the rather stilted dialogue used throughout.
I wanted to favour this film as I'm a big fan of film noir, liked McCrae in earlier films by Hitchcock and Preston Sturges and quite enjoyed "The Uninvited", but I was all together less convinced by this particular effort. The acting, rather like the writing and indeed direction seemed pretty stiff throughout in a movie which just felt flat and failed to come to life at any point.
Sorry, but I wouldn't have minded if "The Unseen" had stayed unseen, at least on my part.
This time she plays a governess to the two infant children of widower Joel McCrae in his big dark house. Unfortunately, its location is right next door to an old murder location, which soon enough becomes a new murder location with the original killer returning to the scene of the crime to cover his tracks. To help do this, he bribes the young son who offers him easy access to the murder house by conveniently leaving the kitchen door open at the dead of night.
McCrae is initially severe on Russell, but in time-honoured fashion he later softens towards her and of course she falls for him too, even as the finger of suspicion seems to point towards him. Also on hand is Herbert Marshall's goodly-seeming family doctor and long-standing friend to McCrae. With Miss Russell required to run up, down and around the dark old house in confusion, all the while trying to win over the hostile children and coldly severe McCrae, it seems as if only the warm-hearted doctor is her only ally but things change and all is revealed when the murderer turns up one last time to tie up all the loose ends, although not in the way he'd have hoped.
The great Raymond Chandler helped with the script here which might explain one or two of the plot twists and director Allen certainly cloaks his production with lots of gloom and shadow, perhaps too much, but the narrative seems very derivative and second-hand and one doesn't really detect the hand of Chandler in any of the rather stilted dialogue used throughout.
I wanted to favour this film as I'm a big fan of film noir, liked McCrae in earlier films by Hitchcock and Preston Sturges and quite enjoyed "The Uninvited", but I was all together less convinced by this particular effort. The acting, rather like the writing and indeed direction seemed pretty stiff throughout in a movie which just felt flat and failed to come to life at any point.
Sorry, but I wouldn't have minded if "The Unseen" had stayed unseen, at least on my part.