Plot

The Uninvited is that rare Hollywood ghost story that doesn’t cop out with a “rational” ending. It has more in common with British ghost tales of the period, in which characters accept spectral phenomenon as everyday occurrences. Roderick Fitzgerald (Ray Milland) and his sister, Pamela (Ruth Hussey), buy a house on the Cornish seacoast, never suspecting that it’s a “bad” house, and therefore subject to haunting. Before long, Roderick and Pamela are visited by Stella Meredith (Gail Russell), whose late mother is the house ghost. It is further asserted that said ghost intends to do Stella harm. Stella’s grandfather Commander Beech (Donald Crisp) is tight-lipped on the subject, but he clearly knows something he isn’t telling. As it turns out, the manor is the home of not one but two ghosts, one of whom is actually trying to shield Stella from harm. Based on the novel by Dorothy Macardle, The Uninvited is one of the spookiest “old dark house” tales ever filmed, having prevailed now over literally decades of CGI-driven rivals.

Memorable Lines

Roderick Fitzgerald: [narration] They call them the haunted shores, these stretches of Devonshire and Cornwall and Ireland which rear up against the westward ocean. Mists gather here… and sea fog… and eerie stories…

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Pamela Fitzgerald: Important decisions have to be made quickly.

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Stella Meredith: [realizing Rick has written the music he is playing] You made that up?
Roderick Fitzgerald: Yes.
Stella Meredith: But you must be brilliant.
Roderick Fitzgerald: Oh, dazzling. People have to wear sunglasses.

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Thoughts from the HauntedHouses.com team

Have you seen The Conjuring? The Innocents? The Haunting? Well it all began with The Uninvited, which has the distinction of reportedly being the first dramatic movie about a haunted house (previous pictures had always played them for laughs or subterfuge to conceal the activities of ne’er-do-wells). That’s not to say that The Uninvited is lacking in humor — Ray Milland’s engaging performance makes the case for that — but when it comes to its paranormal shenanigans, it plays things very straight indeed.

Milland and Ruth Hussey star as Roderick and Pamela Fitzgerald, siblings who on a whim decide to buy a sprawling, cliffside house. The owner (Donald Crisp), whose grown daughter died there, is only too happy to sell the property; that’s not the case with his 20-year-old granddaughter Stella (Gail Russell), who lived there as a child and loves the house because it reminds her of her mother. Roderick and Pamela quickly settle in, but it isn’t long before they notice odd occurrences, beginning with the sounds of a woman sobbing in the hours just before dawn breaks. But this proves to be more than just a ghost story, as the twists escalate into a full-blown mystery reminiscent of Hitchcock and Rebecca. Charles Lang’s black-and-white cinematography won an Oscar nomination, while Victor Young contributes a first-rate score that includes the haunting melody “Stella By Starlight.” Later outfitted with lyrics by Ned Washington, the song became a huge hit and stands today as a classic standard, having been performed by Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Charlie Parker and Ella Fitzgerald.

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