Dorothy McGuire

  • The Spiral Staircase (1946)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2022) Horror film historians are in for a treat (of sort) in The Spiral Staircase, considering how it was a relatively well-financed RKO studio production that happens to rely on slasher-like elements decades before the genre was codified. A blend of film noir cinematography and horror plotting, The Spiral Staircase goes for Gothic thrills, as it pits a mute girl against a killer preying on disabled victims inside a vast Vermont estate. Directed by Robert Siodmak (no stranger to horror), adapted from a gothic novel, it really goes for the elements of what we now know as slasher horror: multiple deaths, creepy surroundings, a mystery surrounding the killer, and so on in a mere 84 minutes. Some sub-tropes are unformed—there’s no “final girl” last stand, for instance, and that’s the kind of stuff that does make the film interesting to experience. Dorothy McGuire does well as the female lead, with plenty of thrills and chills along the way. The restrained nature of the film (considering its production during the heyday of the restrictive Production Code) largely means that the murdering is done stylistically rather than gorily, which may come as a relief and a further point of distinction for many viewers. It does make one imagine an alternate Hollywood history in which slashers would have taken a far different stylistic path…

  • I Want You (1951)

    I Want You (1951)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2021) There’s a clever double sense to I Want You’s title that hints at its dual nature — an expression of romance, of course, but also an exhortation to enlist: “I want you for U.S. Army,” says Uncle Sam. And that, in a nutshell, is what the film is about — small-town romantic drama as the Korean War heats up and American men are once again asked to go back into combat despite knowing exactly what this means this time around. This film is very much of its time, and that’s perhaps what’s most interesting about it: it’s a slice-of-life dramatization of what must have been an overwhelming topic of conversation across American circa 1950 and the film’s decidedly low-key approach makes it feel more convincing than an overblown melodramatic approach. Director Mark Robson can depend on decent performers (Dana Andrews and Dorothy McGuire in the lead) to get the film’s rather delicate drama across. It’s probably not the kind of film that you want to sit down for thrills and laughs, but it’s a remarkable film for its own specific reasons — capturing America at a specific time, not a dramatic one but still a pivotal one.