Double Door (1934)

Double Door is a 1934 Paramount release and it came out in May of that year so it is a pre-code movie. It has definite claims to being a horror movie, but not in the style of the 1930s Universal horror films. There’ll be more to say on the subject of genre later.

It was based on a hit play of the same name by Elizabeth McFadden. The play itself was based on the real-life story of the fabulously wealthy but bizarre Wendell family. The last of the Wendells died in 1931.

McFadden denied that her play was based on the Wendells but the parallels between that family and McFadden’s fictional Van Brett family are so striking that it stretches credibility beyond breaking point to believe that the Wendells were not the inspiration for the play.

The setting is Manhattan in 1910. A wedding is taking place in the Van Brett family mansion. It might be 1910 but despite the family’s vast wealth the house seems decades out of date. The past is an oppressive presence.

The family is ruled by the formidable Victoria Van Brett (Mary Morris). Under the terms of her late father’s will she controls the money. Her sister Caroline (Anne Revere) and her half-brother Rip (Kent Taylor) are entirely dominated by her. Right from the start we sense that Victoria is not quite sane and is consumed by hatreds and resentments. We will quite soon discover that she is not sane at all and that she is very definitely evil.

Rip has married Anne Darrow (Evelyn Venable), a nurse. Victoria is furious at the idea of a Van Brett marrying someone from outside the Van Brett’s social class. To her marrying a nurse is not much better than marrying a shop girl or a parlour maid. Victoria is determined to wreck this marriage and her overwhelming and controlling personality and iron grip on the purse-strings puts her in an excellent position to do so. Victoria will stop at nothing to destroy the marriage and to destroy Anne.

Rip is pleasant enough but he’s a weakling and a fool. Anne has one ally, Rip’s best friend Dr John Lucas (Colin Tapley), but there’s a complication. Dr Lucas had at one time been in love with Anne and Victoria can (and will) use that fact to plant seeds of suspicion in Rip’s mind.

Anne is soon engaged in a desperate and seemingly losing fight to save not just her marriage but her sanity as well. Victoria’s madness reaches epic proportions.

Mary Morris gives us an extraordinary portrait of malevolent insanity which is truly amazing to watch. Paramount’s promotion of the movie compared her to Karloff and Lugosi and the comparison has some substance to it. Victoria Van Brett is a full-blown monster, albeit a human monster.

Anne Revere takes stagey overacting to levels never previously thought possible.

Evelyn Venable is a likeable enough heroine. This is a movie entirely dominated by the women. Both Kent Taylor and Colin Tapley are adequate but a bit colourless

This is out-and-out melodrama. From the start there’s an atmosphere of suppressed hysteria in the Van Brett household and the hysteria soon bursts into full bloom.

There’s also a very strong gothic feel. There’s something slightly decadent and Poe-like in the descent into collective madness of the slowly decaying and degenerating Van Brett family.

It’s not really the plot that matters so much as the overheated claustrophobic atmosphere and the extraordinary menace projected by Mary Morris’s bizarre but fascinating performance.

And there are some genuine horror moments. There are no hints at all of the supernatural. The Van Brett mansion is hunted not by ghosts but by very human evil. The other characters are trapped is a web of malevolence spun by Victoria.

Double Door is an oddity but an extremely interesting one and it’s highly recommended.

The Kino Lorber Blu-Ray looks nice and includes some extras.