Starring Turhan Bey, Lynn Bari, Cathy O'Donnell, Richard Carlson, Donald Curtis
Directed by Bernard Vorhaus
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)
A grieving widow thinks she is ready to move on two years after her husband's death, but then meets a spiritualist who promises to put her in contact with his spirit.
This independent film, also known as The Spiritualist, which has elements of mystery, suspense, and horror, features many familiar faces in the cast, and I found it to be an effective small scale chiller with many memorable atmospheric moments. Bey, better known for his parts for Universal in the early 1940s, is charming and mysterious as the film's spiritualist, whose act is revealed to us fairly early, before we discover there's more to the story than we expected. Bari is fine as the young widow ready to give up on her new beau for a chance to reconnect with the old one, and has an independent spirit to her character rare in films of this period. O'Donnell is a hoot as her younger sister, who tries initially to protect Bari from Bey but quickly falls for the dashing young man. John Alton's photography is dark and moody, making fine use of shadow, and Alexander Laszlo's score smartly showcases Chopin's Prelude No. 4, providing an eerie complement to the visuals. The film has fallen into the public domain and I've only seen it in scratchy prints, but believe there's a Columbia MOD disc out there that should be far sharper, and definitely worth checking out.
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