Let’s talk about Robert Siodmak’s classic thriller The Spiral Staircase (1946). It has a film-within-a-film to ponder, and a brilliant female cast. Also, I give you my theory on this film’s depiction of disability being shaped by post WWII society, even though it’s set in 1906. Classic period pieces that make a comment on their own era (by looking at their own past) are a time-traveling trip.

Mentioned in this video is my previous discussion of One Foot in Heaven: https://youtu.be/260iwhZehQs?si=SacXReG9k3n135hC

Question: do you prefer my off-camera audio “voice notes from a cinephile friend,” or do you prefer the video call format I premiered in my Black Christmas and Ghosthouse/Edge of the Axe videos recently? Let me know in the comments! As always you can watch the video or scroll down to read the full transcript.

Can I just talk about The Spiral Staircase for a few minutes and not go on camera this time? I promise I will go on camera again, but I’ve had my endocrine therapy today and I just don’t feel like it. I look the same, but I feel like crap, and this movie is just racing through my mind.

There’s so much that I want to tell you about it. It has a film within a film, a strong female cast, and it is a period piece from the past—which means the people of 1946 were looking back on 1906. That interests me for some reason, thinking about how they would have viewed their own past, which seems so far away to me. 1906 seems almost as far away as 1946. It’s like watching a movie now that was set in the ’80s and you wonder what they would have picked out as wrong.

Well, the first thing they would have picked out was that the main character, played by Dorothy McGuire, goes to see a movie set in 1906, but this movie didn’t come out until 1912—so that’s an interesting anachronism.

Let’s get started with the film within the film. It’s called The Sands of Dee, which was a D.W. Griffith short drama based on a poem from, I believe, 1850 of the same name. You don’t see the whole movie within The Spiral Staircase, you just see Dorothy McGuire’s character go to the movies. It’s a silent film. I did not really read the description I saw on YouTube for a movie made in the ’40s; it’s a scary movie, and I was like, “Oh, I want to see some shadows, I want to get scared.” I did get scared, but I didn’t read enough of the description to know that Dorothy McGuire’s character does not speak—she is mute because of some trauma in her past.

I always want to find more meaning in things than there is, and I was looking for how the silent film fit into the story of The Spiral Staircase. The Sands of Dee is a short story based on the poem about a woman who is engaged to one man and then is tempted by another flashier, rich artist who pretends that he wants to marry her, but then throws her over for his rich original girlfriend. Her father throws her out of the house for having dumped her first boyfriend, and then she’s found floating in the sea. That doesn’t really have anything to do with The Spiral Staircase, except that here’s a silent woman watching a silent film, and I think that was meant to be the extent of it.

While she’s watching the film, a girl goes upstairs in a hotel or boarding house and is murdered by a man who was hiding in her closet. It comes out that this is a serial killer of women who have disabilities. The woman that was going up the stairs during the silent film had a limp. I didn’t notice because I was looking at this glorious Edwardian poof hairstyle that she had, so I didn’t even notice her limp! But you know, I’m not always the most observant person for all that I’m trying to find meaning in things. Maybe that’s why I look too deeply.

As I said, this movie has a fabulous female cast led by Ethel Barrymore, who won an Oscar for this film. She plays the matriarch of the family in the old dark house where Dorothy McGuire works as an assistant to Ethel Barrymore’s character, who doesn’t like her nurse. Also in the house is a housekeeper played by Elsa Lanchester, and she is just a hoot. She plays most of her scenes pretending to be schnockered, stealing the rich family’s brandy.

Then there’s Dorothy McGuire. I cannot say enough about this performance. She doesn’t speak for most of the film. People have conversations with her as if she were speaking, having all the dialogue and exposition, but her face and her gestures make it very much a two-way dialogue where she’s able to make herself understood.

Ethel Barrymore plays most of her scenes lying in bed, which appeals to me because I do most of these videos and audios lying in bed or lying on the couch, talking like I’m talking on the phone. I’m certainly not comparing myself to Ethel Barrymore’s acting—she’s just a powerhouse and gives a magnificent performance done mostly in bed. She rules this house with an iron fist, never letting them forget how strong she is. You don’t even know if she can get up out of bed, but when she needs to, she does, leading to a cataclysmic ending to this film.

I’m trying not to spoil it, but people in 1946 were dealing with the aftermath of World War II and what Hitler had done doing away with disabled people in Nazi Germany. I feel like there may have been a little reaction to that in this film in the way Dorothy McGuire’s character is shown as such a well-rounded person despite her disability. She has a whole life, a love interest, friends, and interests. Of course, we all know disabled people are whole people, but there is discrimination against them—against us. I’m not saying what my disability is, but I do have a diagnosis; it is an invisible one. There are people walking the earth who think that if you are not perfect, a person’s life isn’t worth anything. That’s why the killer is taking these people out, and that’s what was done in Nazi Germany. Maybe this film was a reaction to that terrible realization, even though it’s set around the period a few years before World War I.

Tell me if you’ve seen The Spiral Staircase or if you’ve seen the D.W. Griffith short that’s featured in the film, because I couldn’t find it. My fascination with characters going to the movies goes back to the review that I did on the film One Foot in Heaven, which was a ’40s movie set during roughly the time period that The Spiral Staircase is set. I’ll link to that in the description if you haven’t seen that one—that’s one of my favorite talks that I’ve given.

I know I had some requests from all of you to do B-roll or put in film clips, which I don’t intend to do. Maybe the more interesting thing you wanted to see wasn’t my face, but the videos with my face haven’t done poorly, and I will go back to that. As I said, today I’m not feeling all that well.

I think that’s about it. Let me know if you’ve seen The Spiral Staircase, if you’re a fan of any of these ladies in the film, and if you have a preference for the audio or the talking-head videos I’ve done. You can let me know in the comments. I will talk to you soon—and stay out of your boss’s brandy if you know what’s good for you! Have a good night.