Starring Charles Laughton, Boris Karloff, Sally Forrest, Richard Stapley, William Cottrell
Directed by Joseph Pevney
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)
A cruel French lord holds a young scoundrel in his castle with a vengeful scheme in mind to marry him to the daughter of the brother he despises.
Based on a short story by Robert Louis Stevenson, this is something of a curious relic, a costume drama with horror elements, produced by Universal Pictures five years after ending their famous series of horror films. If nothing else, it's a fabulous showcase for Laughton, who is perfectly cast as the vile Sire de Maletroit, and seems to relish the evil character, although the film doesn't quite follow through on a number of opportunities to make him really depraved. I've read the short story, and there's a beauty in its language that isn't successfully captured in Jerry Sackheim's screenplay, and the sequence in which its young people fall in love, although intact in the film, is not particularly well acted or presented. Nevertheless, the movie does offer a fun adventure with some worthy dark moments and fine character turns by Alan Napier and Paul Cavanagh, although Karloff seems miscast as an aged knife-brandishing servant, a role unworthy of his talents.
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