Review: The Strange Door (1951)
Charles Laughton steals the show in this 1951 gothic chamber drama that drips with atmosphere--and occasionally even blood. The Strange Door owes its origins to a short story by Robert Louis Stevenson, the Scottish author of Treasure Island and Kidnapped . The tale was originally serialized in a magazine but was finally collected in book form ( New Arabian Nights ) in 1882 with some of Stevenson's other great tales. Given our author's affection for rogues, pirates, and swordplay, the swashbuckling elements should come as no surprise. But this movie succeeds at straddling the line between multiple genres: it's part horror, part swashbuckler, part chamber drama, part love story, part revenge plot--a la The Count of Monte Cristo or even The Man in the Iron Mask . The gothic element owes to the fact that much of the story centers around a house in decline. Above stands a beautiful estate that entertains the wealthy, but below lies a dungeon complete with torture devices, tend...
