The Strange Door DVD, 1951

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MovieMail's Review

There's acting, there's overacting and then there's Charles Laughton in The Strange Door. From the moment his leer first lights up the screen, it's clear lovers of fervid melodrama are in for something special.

Laughton is Sire Alain de Maletroit, a quite splendidly unhinged aristocrat, prone to saying things like “I'm in the mood for relaxation. Let's visit the dungeons.” (Oh yes! He has dungeons – dungeons administered by no less a figure than Boris Karloff!). His lordship has a fiendish plan to enact, one that requires a dissolute libertine: Denis de Beaulieu (Stapley) fits the bill perfectly. Maletroit lures him into his web but Denis isn't quite the wastrel he appears and Maletroit's devilish scheme unravels...

This is outrageous stuff, complete with hidden passages, baroque torture devices and a mysterious figure locked in a cell. At one point, Laughton even gets to say, “I'll feed your liver to the swine.” Not, then, a film for those seeking contemplation or naturalism; rather, it's a lurid pot boiler – and thoroughly entertaining to boot.

James Oliver on 24th January 2010
View all 116 of James Oliver's reviews

Film Information

Director - Joseph Pevney

Produced - 1951

Main Language - English

Countries & Regions - American film

Cast - Boris Karloff, Charles Laughton, Sally Forrest, Richard Stapley

DVD Details

Certificate:	PG	Publisher:	Odeon Entertainment	Region:	2
Length:	81 mins	Cat No:	ODNF223
Format:	DVD B&W

Film Description

Noble-born brawler and debaucher, Denis de Beaulieu (Richard Stapley), is selected by the scheming Sire Alain de Maletroit (Charles Laughton) to be forced into marrying his only niece Blanche de Maletroit (Sally Forrest). Whilst carousing at an inn, Denis is tricked into a fight with one of Maletroit’s men and ends up shooting him dead. Whilst fleeing from the chasing mob, Denis takes refuge by entering a strange door at the Maletroit manor, but soon finds himself in the midst of a nightmare from which he cannot escape. Forced to marry a woman he does not love, due to Sire de Maletroit’s determination to wreak revenge on his family line, his every move is watched by the creeping manservant Voltan (Boris Karloff). Desperate to escape, the young couple decides to leave the house through the only exit known to them…the torture chamber.