This is a movie that I learned about when searching for horror films from 1934. I found this one streaming on YouTube. What was interesting was I wondered what the title meant. Other than confirming I had the correct movie through the director, actors and the runtime, I came into this one blind.
Synopsis: a domineering money-bags' suppressed incestuous urges go into overdrive when her half-brother brings a new bride home to the family's gloomy Fifth Avenue mansion.
Where I'll start is introducing who the people from the synopsis are. The domineering rich woman is Victoria Van Brett (Mary Morris). Her mother passed away so her father remarried. That is how she has a half-brother, Rip (Kent Taylor). There's also another sister of Caroline (Anne Revere). Something to point out here is that this other sister has a nervous nature. This is due to how controlling Victoria is and it has worn her sister thin.
Anne Darrow (Evelyn Venable) is the young woman that Rip is marrying. Mr. Chase (Halliwell Hobbes) shows up from Tiffany's. Being kept there was a set of pearls. In the will when Mr. Van Brett passed away, these were supposed to go to the bride of Rip. They originally belonged to Victoria's mother and she wants them back. She instead has Caroline give her a set of pearls that she was going to give to the housekeeper of their mansion. Victoria demands them to give to Anne instead. The title of this movie refers to a vault that Mr. Van Brett built so he could get absolute quiet to sleep. Victoria has converted it to a safe. She puts the pearls in there. We also learn that she tortured her sister by locking her in there once.
Victoria does everything that she can to ruin the wedding of Rip and Anne. This prevents them from using an organ that is in the mansion. She then tries to write Rip out of the will. She is also manipulating those around her. Rip doesn't care about what had left to him. Anne wants to do whatever she can to get Victoria to stop hating her. When Victoria sees that Rip won't give in to her demands, she decides to smear the character of Anne. She tries using the friendly relationship this younger woman has with a Dr. John Lucas (Colin Tapley). Victoria will even use murder if she must.
That is where I'll leave my recap and introduction to the characters. Where I want to start is that I wasn't sure if this movie was going to go fully into horror. I'd say that it doesn't for almost 75%. Even what they do to push it closer into the realm wouldn't necessarily be considered if this was done today. I think that part of this is when it was made, being the 1930s. I'm still going to include it, especially since both the Internet Movie Database and Letterboxd have it listed as a genre.
Now that I have that out of the way, I want to delve more into our main character here of Victoria. She is ruthless. We see that she is petty. I can appreciate that to an extent. How far she takes it though is crazy. She tortured and bosses her sister around to the point where she is now nervous by nature. She nearly killed her the one time to be honest. Victoria has a negative outlook on life. She doesn't believe that Rip deserves the money since her father remarried and that is how he came about. She believes that Anne is only marrying him for his money. She will stop at nothing here to win. I like how things develop and escalate. The depths of the hate in Victoria is great and I thought that Morris did a great job at conveying it.
Where I should then go would be the other characters and how they are affected by her. Rip seems to like the prospect of having this job with the company that made their family rich. He doesn't want to put up with Victoria, but Anne doesn't want to drive a wedge through the family. What she doesn't realize is that Victoria doesn't like her. She never will. She will do whatever she can to get Anne out of the picture. I never got the idea that she wanted to marry Rip like the synopsis said. She just doesn't believes that Anne's intentions are good. As things go on, Anne can't take it anymore and Rip is willing to just leave with her. When Victoria sees what she is doing isn't working, she ramps up how far she will go. There's also Caroline, who is struggling with how she is treated and it has made her anxious to the point where she can barely function. I thought that Venable, Revere and Taylor were good here to see how Victoria influenced them.
I should then finish out with the rest of the cast. I like Guy Standing as Mortimer Neff. He's someone who works in the business so we see him talking to Rip. He also interacts with Victoria. He's no nonsense. He also won't be pushed around by Victoria. What is good there is that he doesn't necessarily fall into rumors and wants the truth, no matter what it is. Tapley is good as Dr. Lucas. His friendship with Anne becomes problematic only for the fact that it is used against Anne to drive a wedge with Rip. I like how he's friends with Rip as well so it makes it harder to know the truth. I'll say that the rest of the cast were good for what was needed in rounding this out.
Since this is more of a character study and seeing how rumors affect our belief, there isn't more to go into for story. Let me finish out with filmmaking. I wasn't shocked to learn that this was based off a stage play. That fits. We have a limited cast. This takes place in the house solely. It is a mansion and Victoria isolates different people. That is by design and it shows how convincing she is. Having a place this big helps while also being able to section of characters together. I liked that. We don't have effects here outside of making Morris look aged. It makes her creepier as well. The soundtrack also didn't necessarily stand out. What they did with sound design like a scream and knocking on the wall was good. Credit there.
In conclusion, I'm glad that I checked this movie out. What is interesting is that I don't know if I would put this in horror for about 75% of it. When it went there, it had my anxiety up and seeing how evil Victoria is was great. This is carried by the acting. Morris leads the way as our villain while seeing the effects of what she says and does on Venable, Revere and Taylor was good. This is made well enough. It feels like a stage play with limited sets, but that's not a negative. I'd recommend watching this if you're interested in the history of horror cinema or like movies from this era.
My Rating: 7.5 out of 10.
