The Uninvited (1944) Queer Film B-

DIRECTOR: Lewis Allen.

A queer ghost story with so many lesbian characters it’s hard to keep count—my best estimate is four (three living, one dead). The Uninvited was a major hit in 1944 and remains wonderfully entertaining today. The film opens with lesbian number one, Pamela Fitzgerald, played by Ruth Hussey. Pamela and her brother Rick (Ray Milland, then at the height of his stardom) fall in love with a deserted house on the Cornwall coast. Director Lewis Allen introduces them in a way that initially suggests they’re newlyweds—naughty indeed—until Hussey’s very boyish haircut tips us off. Heavens, no!

Once installed, the siblings discover a room that is several degrees colder than the rest of the house. The chill belongs to the ghost of lesbian number two, Mary Meredith, who—like Hitchcock’s Rebecca four years earlier—died under mysterious circumstances after falling from a nearby cliff. Mary seems determined to lure her daughter Stella (Gail Russell, heartbreakingly luminous before alcoholism took its toll) to the same fate. Yet the connection between mother and daughter feels more erotic than maternal, and Stella responds to it with unsettling pleasure. Good grief: lesbian number three.

It also emerges that Mary had a female lover in life, bringing us to lesbian number four: Miss Holloway, played with deliciously sinister flair by gay writer‑actress Cornelia Otis Skinner. And then there is a second ghost, Carmel, more benevolent and more maternal, whose voice we hear but whose face we never see. She might be lesbian number five, but the evidence is thin.

The film offers occasional shivers, but the real pleasure lies in watching Hussey and Skinner interpret their queer‑coded roles—Hussey with a light, comedic touch, Skinner with a variation on Judith Anderson’s Mrs. Danvers. What dazzles today is Charles Lang’s immaculate, Oscar‑nominated black‑and‑white cinematography and Victor Young’s haunting theme for Stella, later transformed into the standard Stella by Starlight with lyrics by Ned Washington. The costumes, naturally, are by the great gay designer Edith Head.

As for Ray Milland’s Rick—well, he is a music critic. Hmmm.

Adapted by Dodie Smith and Frank Partos from Dorothy Macardle’s novel Uneasy Freehold.

PARAMOUNT

STREAMING: “The Uninvited ” is unavailable for streaming. However, the DVD can be purchased at Amazon.

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