Double Door (1934) User Reviews

overwrought drama, scary as all get-out

[blanche-2 · 8/10 · 19 February 2021]

From 1934, "Double Door" has one of the most evil characters I've ever seen, Victoria Van Brett (Mary Morris), and a plot that will have you on the edge of your seat, particularly in the last 10 minutes.

Beautiful Evelyn Venable, who was the model for the Columbia Pictures logo, plays Ann Darrow, who marries Victoria's brother Rip (Kent Taylor). Rip, Victoria, and their sister Caroline (Anne Revere) all live in a Fifth Avenue mansion in around 1910.

The family has money, but Victoria controls it and her entire family. She ruins Caroline's chance at happiness by breaking up her relationship, and she works very hard to destroy Rip's marriage. She takes all their wedding gifts, refuses to let the organ play the rest of the bride's entrance, and swaps a $500 set of pearls, an heirloom for the bride, with some cheap necklace. Then she makes them cut their honeymoon short. Ann is determined to be civil to her. You'd need the disposition of a saint.

Caroline is terrified of her, as one time, her sister had closed her up in some kind of vault and keeps threatening to do it again.

Rip and Ann finally have had enough (though I'd say it took Rip an inordinate length of time) and decide to move out. Victoria wants Rip to stay. She comes up with a plan.

This was Anne Revere's film debut after playing the role on Broadway. She's a wonderful actress who has to have big moments of hysteria. I suppose today it seems over the top, but acting was different then. Revere certainly proved herself to be a gifted actress, eventually winning an Oscar.

Mary Morris also did her role on Broadway, and this was her only film. They must have thrown tomatoes at her from the audience when she did the play, not because of her, but because of the character she played.

This is a nerve-wracking film. I highly recommend it.

They had me at the opening credits...

[Larry41OnEbay-2 · 8/10 · 27 June 2006]

After the Paramount logo, we see the title appear in ordinary white text on glass, followed by credits for cast and crew. Through the glass, behind the text, we see a heavy set of doors. Then an enormous face appears between the credits and the doors, drifting forward. It is the stern face of a bitter old woman; a crazy and arrogant witch of a face. Then suddenly the image presses against the text and the glass shatters!!! That's right, the old woman has a look so hard, a face so tough, that it shatters glass!!! With acting and dialogue that film festivals live for, this near-campy drama of psychological manipulation and domination pushes the limits of pre-code thrillers.

Inspired by the eccentric, reclusive Wendel family of New York's Fifth Avenue, Elizabeth MacFadden's stage melodrama, Double Door, was adapted for the screen in 1934. Set in 1910 Manhattan, the film stars Mary Morris and Anne Revere, repeating their stage roles as the domineering, calculating Victoria Van Brett and her weakling sister Caroline.

SPOILERS: The title refers to the door guarding the Van Brett's secret vault, wherein are stored the family jewels. Years earlier, Victoria, the only member of the family who knows the vault's combination, locked Caroline in the dark, airless chamber, literally frightening her into madness. At present, the misleadingly sweet and sour-natured Victoria has embarked upon a campaign to destroy Ann Darrow (Evelyn Venable), the new bride of her half-brother Rip Van Brett (Kent Taylor). I initially planned to just check out a few minutes of this film to see if it was any good, but could not stop watching it until the end, which will leave you breathless...

Desperation leads to insanity.

[mark.waltz · 6/10 · 13 November 2015]

It is the performance of the forgotten stage actress Mary Morris who you will remember here, that is if you are lucky enough to find a copy of this rare gem. Obviously based on a stage melodrama which starred miss Morris, she is here in her only film role and is playing a highly despicable character whom you know needs to be locked up and institutionalized herself. As a dominating matriarch of a New York old money family, she has kept her younger sister Anne Revere and her younger half brother under her thumb.

When the younger brother falls in love with the pretty Evelyn Venable, Morris hates her instantly, and takes drastic steps to prevent the family dynamic from being invaded from an outsider. A spooky flashback shows the younger Morris with her half brother doing deeds of such creepiness that you know this is a madness that goes way back, possibly caused by the presumed cruelty of this family's deceased patriarch.

The double door title refers to the family vault, a sound proof room off of Morris's bedroom where the family valuables are kept. through a conversation with Anne Revere and Morris we learn that the older sister has use this as punishment and may do so again should her whacked out brain push her to take these evil steps.

Somewhat theatrical, this is a strange melodrama that is very Edgar Allan Poe in nature although not quite a horror story. There are certainly elements of horror in it, but this is more a melodrama of old money at its presumed entitlement and the methods that some members of the upper class will go to in order to keep family members in line. If this had been made in the 1940's or 1950's, it probably would have had a male patriarch played by Vincent Price rather than the female character, one of the rare genuinely evil women on film in this time period.

Eerie organ music is heard over a few of the melodramatic scenes, and it almost appears to be like a filmed radio play. The young Anne Revere would play similarly severe sisters or mothers as Morris's in films in the 1940s, but nothing came close to this. Standing next to Morris, the male involvement makes the men seem like wimps, and Revere and Venable are definitely upstaged by the subtle performance of Miss Morris who only goes over the top in the necessary mad scene near the end.

it will be pretty obvious to you how the film is going to conclude, but half the fun is getting to that point. I have seeing some grizzly endings in films of this nature, but in watching this even assuming what was going to happen, I was still spooked. So hopefully this will be rediscovered and audiences will find an opportunity to see a rare, forgotten actress show what was being on stages around the country, especially in little theaters that specialized in the plays that are now known as Barnstormers.

When your fortune owns you rather than vice versa

[AlsExGal · 7/10 · 19 March 2017]

The main character here is Mary Moore as Victoria Van Brent, the oldest sister and dominatrix in a family whose only remains are herself, younger sister Caroline, and baby brother Rip. They live together in an old creepy mansion full of reminders of the past but devoid of the present.

Victoria - age unspecified but clearly middle aged- always dresses in black, emotionally batters younger sister Caroline to the point where she is just a shadow of a human being, and has got baby brother Rip convinced that his late father is always looking down on him, and that his wishes are Victoria's wishes.

Let me straighten out one little matter. The synopsis says that the film is about Victoria threatening people with a secret torture chamber in the house. There isn't one, so if you are expecting Vic to go mad and don the red robe of the inquisitors and put somebody on the rack, then you will be sorely disappointed.

The film opens on Rip's wedding day to a "commoner" - a nurse named Ann. Her union to Rip will issue in new blood and life to the family. Victoria has her own idea as to who Rip should marry, and it isn't Ann, whom she assumes is after the family money.

Now this had me wondering, why did Victoria wait until AFTER the wedding to take any action to get rid of Ann? Wouldn't it have been easier if Rip was just beginning to see Ann to nip things in the bud? I guess Victoria figures she can get rid of Ann just as easily after she marries Rip as she could before. Now for a woman to never marry in 1910, the time this film was set, was a big deal and a departure from social norms. But Victoria doesn't seem to hate men, she just loves control. The family money just affords her that control. Marriage at the turn of the 20th century for a woman would mean ceding control, and she was not about to do that.

Victoria starts out with passive aggressive stuff to put a rift between Ann and Rip, but when that doesn't work, she turns to a more severe and permanent solution.

This film has great atmosphere, even if it is a bit claustrophobic. If it didn't say Paramount I'd swear it was a Universal horror with its secret panels and dark corridors. One funny thing about the film - you get a big dose of the thoughts and feelings of everybody in the cast except Victoria, who is the central character. Maybe this is to dehumanize her so the audience can look upon her as pure villain - I know I did.

One bit of trivia - This film was based on a play that was very loosely based on the wealthy Wendel family of 19th and early 20th century New York. The last generation -only the third in fact - consisted of one brother and seven sisters who never married. The brother ruled over the sisters with an iron fist, would not let them socialize or marry because he thought heirs would decentralize their fortune, and did not allow electricity or even a phone into the house. So they all lived together in gloom, prisoners of their wealth until the last sibling died in 1931 leaving a fortune worth 100 million in that day's money - two or three billion today. Ironically, with no direct heirs 2303 people came out of the wood work from all over the world claiming to be heirs including an entire village in Germany named Wendel and some actual distant cousins in Czechoslovakia. Eventually, just about every claim was disproven. However, brother John forgot one thing - if nobody knows what you HAVE been doing, then nobody knows what you HAVEN'T been doing either, thus there were many people among the fortune hunters claiming to be illegitimate children of the recluse siblings.

I'd recommend this old spooky film if it ever comes your way.

Panic Room

[tedg · 7 February 2010]

During the last depression, moviegoers were obsessed with the wealthy. As with the aristocrats in Europe, these folks neither created nor managed wealth. They just had it and wanted more. Here we have a domineering woman who believes she deserves it all, taking from rich peers in the same family.

The thing can only be justified in terms of developing a feeling of moral superiority in the audience.

The story is: old maid matriarch terrorizes her younger old maid sister who is demented and her weakwilled younger half-brother. He has just gotten married and will inherit the fortune, something the witch wants to prevent. The climax has her locking the new bride in a secret vault to suffocate. This is discovered and the aristopeach saved. The witch then locks herself in, guaranteeing doom but at least she will be with some pearls, worth almost $10 million in today's dollars.

This was a successful play before being a successful film. Its all about the domineering witch, who must have been the model for Oz, and the simpering sister. Both were carried into the film from the play.

It is an odd notion to me, building a movie around characters only, with no other scaffolding.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

Double Door

[BandSAboutMovies · 7/10 · 14 January 2022]

Based on the 1933 Broadway play of the same name by Elizabeth A. McFadden, Double Door is a pre-Hays Code directed by Charles Vidor (Gilda, Blind Alley).

Victoria Van Brett (Mary Morris, who had a long stage career but this was her only film) rules her family, even destroying the relationships that her brother Rip (Kent Taylor, Brain of Blood many years after this) has until Anne Darrow (Evelyn Venable, the voice and the model for the Blue Fairy in Pinocchio and one of the rumored inspirations for the Columbia Pictures logo) starts dating him. Just how horrible is Victoria? Well, she once locked her sister Caroline (Anne Revere, who would win the Best Supporting Oscar for National Velvet and be an outspoken critic of the House Un-American Activities Committee, which got her blacklisted) in a soundproof safe for a long period of time just for making her mad.

I mean, she also has one of the servants close the organ during "Here Comes the Bride" as Victoria and Rip are being married in her house, so there's really no limit to the amount of mean that she has in store for everyone. That must be how she got the name "The Female Frankenstein of Fifth Avenue."

Adriot From All Angles

[Maliejandra · 10/10 · 30 May 2014]

Everything about this movie is masterful, from the story to the performances to the costumes to the sets. Charles Vidor did an excellent job of adapting a stage production to the screen. It is appropriately claustrophobic but never stale.

Rip Van Brett (Kent Taylor) is getting married. He comes from one of the oldest established and wealthiest families in New York, so when he chooses a nurse (Evelyn Venable) to be a his bride, his spinster sister Victoria (Mary Morris) is unhappy. She has already foiled one sibling Caroline (Anne Revere) from finding wedded bliss, and she intends to break up her brother's happiness too with her underhanded schemes.

This film was shown at Cinevent 2014, and everyone I knew who saw it at another film festival urged me to see it. Apparently word of mouth spread because the screening was packed. The audience ate it up, to the point that several times people began yelling at the screen. If you ever get a chance to see this, DO NOT miss it.

Stagy

[januszlvii · 6/10 · 29 October 2022]

Double Door is an okay movie. The biggest problem is it is too stage bound. Mary Morris ( Victoria) is the main character ( although Evelyn Venablr ( Anne) is listed first). You know this when you see Morris's picture right in the beginning, and only her photo. She plays a wealthy domineering middle aged spinster who controls her sister Caroline ( Anne Revere) and half brother ( Rip) with fear. Anne who married Rip ( Kent Taylor) and thus is despised by Victoria is the only good character with any spine and backbone. I actually think Victoria is worse then most of the posters here. Why? What she does to Rip and especially Caroline ( locking her in a vault for punishment), is not done for economic gain ( although she certainly is greedy ( stealing a Pearl necklace that was meant for Anne)), but to keep them from any kind of happiness because she is so miserable herself ( think Miss Havisham from Great Expectations). She does everything possible to break Anne and Rip up, and fails, so she eventually locks Anne in the vault, hoping to kill her. Spoilers ahead: Finally Caroline stands up and says she hears screams and Victoria says she was having nightmares, but Caroline mentions the vault ( only Victoria knows the password), and when Rip tells her to open it, she refuses until he threatens to break her arm. She does and Anne is saved. Rip says he is taking Anne away, and Caroline wants to go as well. They step out of the room, and Victoria tries to lure Caroline into the vault by mentioning the necklace but Rip and Anne enter the room, and Caroline leaves with them. Victoria realizes they left the necklace so she goes in the vault to get it but the door closes and she is locked in, and screams as the film ends. I would give the movie 5/10 stars ( far too stagy and not enough action and horror for my taste ( watch The Raven with Karloff and Lugosi instead)) except I give an extra star for the opening credits and the creepy music accompanying it. So I give it 6/10 stars. Slightly above average.

A dinosaur trying to devour all her kin but ending up in a great vomit

[clanciai · 10/10 · 1 November 2021]

This is an ordinary chamber play all taking place in one house, but it is astoundingly efficient especially staged on film that by appalling close-ups turns it into one of the ghastliest nightmares ever rendered alive, mainly because of perhaps the grisliest female characters in film history played by Mary Morris in all too convincing horror. She is just a kind old lady that wishes everybody well, no one can but believe the best of her, everyone trusts her, but she has an obsession: a heritage of a precious pearl necklace, that she doesn't want to part with, when her younger brother imperils her control of the estate when he marries, so she does anything to prevent that marriage, in a positive warfare campaign of intrigues verging on virtuosity. It's a masterful play, and its screening does it more than justice, as Charles Vidor successfully underscores and enhances all the effects, that constantly keep piling up to ever more overwhelming strokes of innovation. No wonder the play kept Broadway on edge. In character it reminds a little of J. B. Priestley's "An Inspector Calls", but this is much more gruesome. In short. It's a killer.

Well Done If Unbelievable Melodrama

[boblipton · 6/10 · 9 December 2022]

Mary Morris is the head of a rich old family on Fifth Avenue. Her younger sister, Ann Revere, and half-brother Kent Taylor live there. She controls the family fortune. She also controls the family, objecting when Taylor proposes to marry Evelyn Venable. * She's a nurse who works for Taylor's friend, Dr. Colin Tapley. Taylor may love her, says Miss Morris, but what what Miss Venable loves is the vast wealth of the family. She also starts playing mind games with her new sister-in-law. Taylor and Venable wish to move up to Westchester, but Miss Morris confounds them, keeping her family close about her. It all comes to a head when she accuses Miss Venable of carrying on an affair with Tapley.

I can understand why people enjoyed this full-blooded melodrama, but I found it rather disagreeable, with Miss Morris' character thoroughly objectionable, Taylor a wet rag, Miss Revere a terrified ninny, and Miss Venable long-suffering. They're one-note characters, a hallmark of old-fashioned mellers, but it's hard to take any of them seriously. I grew up at the edges of big, old money, and that's not a way any of them would have behaved; even my great-aunt Esther knew you couldn't be such an obvious creep. You needed some subtlety.

Still, it's all put together in a highly workmanlike fashion in Charles Vidor's second credited feature. Harry Fishbeck's shadow-filled photography captures the dusty and gloomy feeling that the show envisages, and Miss Morris gives a performance as a vile crone at the age of 39 that would have gotten her thrown out of my mother's bridge game, after her sister had trimmed her thoroughly.

*interestingly, Miss Venable's character is named Anne Darrow, just like Fay Wray's character in KING KONG.

Panic Room #1

[richardchatten · 4/10 · 11 April 2018]

An earlier user has already mentioned the similarity this plot (at least at first) bears to Sidney Howard's 'The Silver Cord', recently filmed with Laura Hope Crews repeating her Broadway role as a smothering mother coming between her mother's boy of a son and his new wife. In 'Double Door' too, an easily dominated young man is fought over by two stronger-willed females, mommy being replaced by a controlling, much older half-sister who also has her hapless sister under her thumb. In her only film appearance, Mary Morris recreates her stage role as the shrewish Victoria Van Brett, who the original publicity (and the film's credits) attempted to present as some sort of horror film ghoul - which extends into the film itself, since she wears heavy eye-shadow and is constantly lit from below - rather than the mercenary and manipulative domestic tyrant she actually is.

Anne Revere, who plays Victoria's downtrodden sister - also repeating her original Broadway role - shortly after this film was made was in the first Broadway production of Lilian Hellman's 'The Children's Hour'; so it's quite possible that Hellman saw her in 'Double Door', which would explain the similarity between the depiction of Victoria browbeating Caroline into submission and the powerful scenes preserved for posterity in William Wyler's 1936 film version of 'The Children's Hour', 'These Three', in which Bonita Granville coerces Marcia Mae Jones into backing up her malicious lies. Another much later film also anticipated by 'Double Door' is 'Panic Room', as becomes apparent when the meaning of the film's title is eventually explained.

The woman is a cancer...a vicious, awful cancer.

[planktonrules · 9/10 · 17 October 2021]

Victoria Van Brett (Mary Morris) is a horrible, bitter old woman. She also happens to be rich and in control of the family fortune....and she uses it to control and torment her family. When her niece and nephew try to marry, she does her best to break up the relationships. Why? Well, because she can...and because she enjoys destroying people. But how far she is willing to go....that might just shock you!

This is an incredible film. The opening credits are among the most jarring I've ever seen. You hear Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D minor" and as you hear this creepy music play, scary faces of the folks who star in the film appear abruptly and fly towards the audience in closeups. You really have to see it to appreciate how jarring it is and I actually yelled out when the faces appeared!

The shame of this film is that Ms. Morris only made one film...this one. Otherwise, her acting was confined to the stage...which is a real shame as she was amazing. One of the creepiest and most evocative performances of the 1930s...that is how good she was.

Overall, this is a seldom seen but fantastic movie...one that you won't soon forget....especially when it comes to that double door!

Panic in the room.

[ulicknormanowen · 8/10 · 13 January 2022]

Victoria van Brett is akin to other matriarches of the thirties;she recalls Mrs Phelps (Laura Hope Crews in "the silver cord" : a woman still in love with her son and who sees her daughter-in -law as an intruder ) and Regina (Bette Davis in Lilian Hellmann 's "little foxes" transferred to the screen by the great Wyler: the graspy greedy businesswoman who does not care for her family).

Mary Morris -in her only screen appearance- is so strong a villain she can effortlessly grab today's audience :although hardly 40 ,she looks at least twenty years older ; her hate for the intruder (her nephew's wife) knows no bounds . A flashback shows us as she used to treat her nephew who has lost any will power (it's his wife who rebels,like Irene Dunne did in "the silver cord") ; and the way she tortures her poor sister Caroline ( a whining Anne Revere, a great character actress )!

With its baroque settings , its Gothic atmosphere , "double door" is almost a horror movie :the scene in which Victoria lures the poor wife into the soundproof room seems out of a fairytale in which the witch (Maleficent in "sleeping beauty" )mesmerizes her victim ; the father's ashes , always here to keep a close watch on the unfortunate Rip .

A black pearl.

"The play that made Broadway gasp!!"

[kidboots · 10/10 · 22 October 2009]

Is how it was introduced in the opening credits. With a confronting beginning - an elderly woman's face in extreme close up - and she is extremely scary!!!

The setting is Fifth Avenue, New York in 1910 and a wedding is about to be celebrated between Anne Darrow (Evelyn Venable) and Rip Van Brett (Kent Taylor), half brother to Caroline (Anne Revere). Caroline, a sweet spinster, is completely dominated by her embittered older sister Victoria (Mary Morris). Victoria is angry because of the marriage and because Anne will now be Mrs. Van Brett. Mr. Chase (Halliwell Hobbes), from Tiffanys, tells Victoria and Caroline about a room their late father built "a mysterious sleeping room" so he could sleep soundly amid the noise of Fifth Avenue. He has also bought over a family heirloom, a string of priceless pearls that are to be given to Anne, as the future Mrs. Van Brett. Victoria, in a silent rage, substitutes them for a string of worthless beads and takes great pleasure in seeing the disappointment on Rip and Anne's faces. An old friend of Anne's, Dr. Lucas, comes to congratulate her and also to warn her about the nutty family she now belongs to.

The sleeping room is no secret to Victoria - she uses it as a safe and on occasion as a "punishment" room when Caroline has displeased her. She now threatens to lock Caroline in there and suffocate her if she doesn't stand by her in her persecution of Anne. Victoria also sends for Rip (who has to cut short his honeymoon) to help manage all their property - once home she works him so hard he barely gets a chance to see Anne. She worries that their marriage is in trouble and confides in Dr. Lucas. After a dinner party in which Anne asserts her independence - a stranger calls, a private detective, hired by Victoria, who has evidence of Anne's secret meetings with Dr. Lucas.

The climax is extremely chilling as Anne is shown the secret of the sleeping room. The film has a lot in common with "The Silver Cord", only instead of a monstrous mother there is an evil sister and Mary Morris is just outstanding as Victoria. It is extremely surprising to find out that this was her only film. In the film Rip is telling Anne of his terrible childhood, being forced to sleep in the same room as Victoria. There are a couple of words cut out and it is obviously (probably more so in the play) of an incestuous relationship. For 1934 either before or after the code it was meaty stuff.

Anne Revere, who in the 40s had a wonderful career as a character actress, had originated her role as Caroline Van Bret on Broadway. Alas, this was also her only film in the 30s. Evelyn Venable should have been a much bigger star but apart from a Will Rogers film "David Harum" , her initial features - "Cradle Song" (about nuns), "Death Takes a Holiday" (Frederic March played the Grim Reaper) and "Double Door" (about a bitter old woman) where not exactly the types of films that were going to send people racing to the theatres. Then, before she knew it, she was Shirley Temple's mother in "The Little Colonel" and then had to be snooty to Katharine Hepburn in "Alice Adams" so the writing was on the wall. Kent Taylor, who was Rip, was a good looking leading man, but again like Evelyn Venable, with whom he co-starred in several films, he never reached stardom.

Highly, Highly Recommended.

Spooky melodrama

[strangenstein · 9/10 · 30 January 2022]

1934's Double Door is a real doozy. It's a melodrama, but elements of mystery and horror sneak in periodically. Mary Morris plays a real witch, and you'll love hating her. The cinematography constantly surprises, with plenty of camera movement, weird angles, and under lighting. The acting is good throughout. Double Door isn't horror, but it does create an uneasy atmosphere. Recommended!

A PAIR OF PARAMOUNT THRILLERS

[JohnHowardReid · 8/10 · 6 January 2018]

A particularly important entry in VintageFilmBuff's Paramount collection is director Charles Vidor's 1934 engrossingly cinematic translation of the highly successful 1933 Broadway chiller, "Double Door", in which stage stars Mary Morris (her only film) and Anne Revere (film debut) repeat their roles most effectively, aided by lovely heroine Evelyn Venable and well-cast Kent Taylor as the weak-as-water "hero". Full marks for sets and atmosphere.

On another Paramount front, despite the casting of comedian, Charlie Ruggles, as the go-getting lead of "Murders in the Zoo" (1933), it's actually Randolph Scott who saves the day, but not before villainous Lionel Atwill...

I must admit I'm a sucker for movies set in a zoo, and this one is no exception despite the fact that we know who the killer is right from the opening shot. Nonetheless, screenwriters Seton I. Miller and Philip Wylie do contrive at least two or three quite unexpected twists in the plot. Director Eddie Sutherland keeps it moving.

The Old Dark House (on Fifth Avenue)

[drownsoda90 · 9/10 · 30 May 2022]

"Double Door" focuses on Anne, a young bride in turn-of-the-century Manhattan who finds herself at the mercy of her husband's embittered, older half-sister, Victoria, who controls the family estate with an iron fist. Anne at first attempts to win her new sister-in-law over, but finds that Victoria's manipulation and scare tactics could be lethal.

This dour adaptation of the stage play of the same name (and featuring two stage originals: Mary Morris and Anne Revere) works for two reasons: One, the night-and-day performances from Evelyn Venable, playing the innocent Anne, and Mary Morris, the wretched and vindictive sister-in-law; and two, the sprawling mansion setting, which provides an ominous, classically spooky backdrop for the psychological games to unfold (think "The Old Dark House", but on Fifth Avenue).

Morris, a stage actor who only ever appeared on film here, is the main attraction for most, and while her theatrical style at times pokes through, she is still fiercely effective in this role--the character of Victoria belongs in the ranks of the most wicked female villains in film history, up there with Annie Wilkes, Alex Forrest, and Mrs. Danvers. She is vile, greedy, and controlling, and Morris wrings every last drop of these character elements. Venable plays counterpoint as the likable newcomer who at first hopes to see some good in Victoria, only to find her relentless abuses too much to bear, while Anne Revere is memorable as Victoria's downtrodden sister who has been terrorized by Victoria her entire life (even being locked in a soundproof vault as "punishment").

The majority of the film consists of a back-and-forth dynamic between the Victoria and Anne before it ratchets up in the last act to a quasi-murder mystery, with Victoria's confounding propensity for evil reaching its apparent peak. There is a notable mix of melodrama here with psychological thriller elements and, at times, horror, though for most modern audiences, "Double Door" will play more like a straightforward psychological drama soaked in gloom. As a character showcase of exemplary wickedness, "Double Door" is among the best pre-Code examples. 8/10.

"The play that made Broadway gasp"

[view_and_review · 9/10 · 9 March 2024]

With so many movies in the early-30's about high society I didn't think I'd be in the mood for yet another one. Boy was I wrong. "Double Door" was an astounding movie.

The movie took place in New York City in 1910. The focus was the Van Bretts, one of the oldest families in New York and one of the oldest and wealthiest families on Park Avenue. A woman named Victoria 'Vicky' Van Brett (Mary Morris) was the torch bearer and matriarch of the Van Brett family. She was a mean, dictatorial, spiteful old woman. If you look up "old hag" in the dictionary her face will be there. She was akin to May Robson's character in the movie "You Can't Buy Everything" (1934).

Vicky ruled the Van Brett family with an iron fist, and at the moment she was cross with her younger half-brother Rip (Kent Taylor) for marrying a nurse. How could he marry an "upper servant"!?

In that respect, "Double Door" was just like several other movies of that era in which a romantic rich boy desires to marry a girl from a lower class. It's always a fight for love. And in every case the woman has to prove that she's not marrying the man for his money, only out of love. More specifically, "Double Door" is similar to "Shopworn" (1932), "Another Language" (1933), and "Silver Cord" (1933) in which the mother is the most vociferous against her son's sweetheart.

In "Double Door," Vicky made no attempts to hide her contempt for Rip's bride, Anne Darrow (Evelyn Venable). Even though Vicky wasn't Rip's mother she fit the part due to the large difference in age and the fact she had to fill the role as his mother when both his parents died. Vicky was set on driving Anne away if it was the last thing she did.

Vicky had so much control over Rip, Anne, and her younger sister Caroline Van Brett (Anne Revere) because she controlled the purse strings. She was the executor of the Van Brett estate so all Van Bretts and all the servants had to bend to her will; and what an unyielding will she had.

Mary Morris was excellent as Victoria Van Brett. Although she was not even forty when this movie was made, she had the mannerisms, voice, and movements of a woman at least sixty-years-old. Even when she stared (or glared) she conveyed so much. I'm sorry she didn't do more. When I looked up her filmography she only had "Double Door" to her credit. It could be that she was a stage performer and only did this movie because she'd done it in theater before. In any case, I thought her performance was Oscar-worthy.

Anne Revere was also exceptional as Caroline Van Brett, Vicky's sister. She was a forty-two-year-old woman with the mentality of a two-year-old. She was so utterly handicapped by Vicky's dominance that she never developed. She was a sad sight. She spoke and behaved like a child--always in search of Vicky's love and approval.

Kent Taylor and Evelyn Venable were passable as Rip and Anne, the newlyweds. Anne's manner of speaking didn't seem to fit to me considering she was a nurse before marrying Rip. She spoke proper and posh as though she was from society herself. The only thing I can think to attribute that to is her training or taking lessons in order to fit in with her husband's family and friends.

A lot of credit has to be given to the writer, Elizabeth McFadden, and the director, Charles Vidor, who was able to make the play work on screen. I'm giving out flowers everywhere on this one. "Double Door" was a true treat.

Free on YouTube."

A house of death

[jarrodmcdonald-1 · 7 March 2022]

Stage actress Mary Morris gives what can be called a tour-de-force performance in Paramount's precode thriller DOUBLE DOOR. Since the filmed play lends itself to histrionics, it is remarkable that Miss Morris is able to etch such a vivid character without resorting to the scenery chewing one might expect.

She conveys just the right amount of menace without being too severe. At the heart of this twisted tale is a strong woman who protects her family despite the ways in which she runs the household. She manipulates them to ensure unity in the face of outside interference and opposition.

Her main obstacle comes in the form of a lower class gal (Evelyn Venable) marrying into the Van Brett fortune. Of course, she cannot go so far as prevent her younger half-brother (Kent Taylor) from wedding the unsuitable creature, but she can sure as heck do her best to run the woman off!

Aiding in these efforts is a mousy sister (Anne Revere), afraid of her own shadow, who will help in these dastardly schemes...or else. We learn that the younger sister has been locked inside an airtight room when she became defiant. So she will cooperate or risk being locked up again.

It is explained that the enclosed room, a vault, was built by the family's long-deceased patriarch. He often went in there to sleep, away from all the noise outside their Fifth Avenue home. He died inside the vault.

Morris and Revere have great rapport in their scenes together. Both actresses had been in the hit Broadway production. The rest of the movie's cast consists of Paramount contractees who are all quite effective. Miss Venable does nicely as the outsider who marries into the fold. Her character morphs from vulnerable in the beginning to more determined later on, especially when she decides she must get her husband out of this place.

There is an engrossing final sequence where the women go toe to toe. Venable is held hostage in the vault by Morris. Since it is airtight and thus soundproof, nobody can hear her cries for help. The groom thinks his bride left with another man (Colin Tapley) which isn't true.

Supposedly the two sisters in the story are based on the real-life Wendel sisters of Manhattan. The Wendel family was known for its money and its frugality. Despite their enormous wealth, the Wendel sisters spent their final years living in a way that suggested squalor. Reminiscent of GREY GARDENS. The last surviving sister had no heirs and left what would be worth $1 billion in assets today to charity. She had a white French poodle that continued to make headlines after she died.

There is a scene in the film where Morris tries to hide the fact that she's concealed Venable inside the makeshift tomb. A pudgy white poodle runs into the room and scratches on a panel to alert the others about what is really going on. I won't reveal the ending. But it is a house of death and someone does lose their life in the last scene. The death is cleverly foreshadowed in the very first shot of the film.