Guest in the House, noir, 1944

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHPGqYp-OmQ&list=WL&index=26

















http://www.filmnoirfile.com/guest-in-the-house/





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Whatever the different contributions of three directors to the film, a very strong noir style pervades Guest in the House. At the start, as the credits roll, different rooms in the Proctor’s home are shown. In each one, a huge shadow passes across the rear wall, briefly blotting out sunlight on the wall. The interior architecture of the house is used to excellent effect. The screen image is incessantly crisscrossed by ceiling beams, hallways, doorframes, window panes, and the banister and pickets of the staircase.


There are riveting shots, as when Evelyn looks through her rain-swept bedroom window at Ann’s departure.



Entire scenes are over-the-top. When the scales are lifted from Douglas’s eyes about Evelyn, they are in darkness in the living room, with only the slightest illumination from an unseen fireplace.



As Evelyn frantically scurries around looking for Lee’s bird, the camera is similarly active, cutting back and forth between her and Aunt Martha, looking up at Evelyn’s legs, then down at her upturned anguished face.



The soundtrack renders Evelyn’s phobia through the noise of fluttering wings.


Guest in the House is a rara avis in film noir: it isn’t a crime story, but it features a femme fatale. Evelyn is destructive to Ann and Douglas materially as well as emotionally. The night Douglas draws a sketch of Evelyn on a lampshade, they get under each other’s skin. Evelyn wants to make him (and the house) hers.


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