User reviews

Geraldine Fitzgerald is the sister from hell in "The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry," a 1945 film directed by Robert Siodmak, who knows a thing or two about suspense. The film stars George Sanders, Ella Raines, Moyna Macgill (Angela Lansbury's mother), and Sara Algood.

The Quincy family, a brother (Sanders) and two sisters (Macgill and Fitzgerald) live in an big, old house - all that was left to them by their parents. Harry is the head designer of patterns in a cloth family; his sister Lettie (Fitzgerald) is a professional invalid; and his other sister, Hester (Macgill), is a rather silly, complaining woman who feels unappreciated.

When a New York firm comes to town to look at the cloth factory, Harry meets and falls in love with Deborah (Raines) and announces they are going to be married. Hester is thrilled beyond belief for him; Lettie, on the other hand, is very upset. Deborah has her number immediately and is determined not to allow Lettie to break up her relationship with Harry.

Lettie and Hester are supposed to move into another house, but that doesn't happen. On the day Harry and Deborah are to leave for Boston to be married, Lettie has one of her "attacks" and Harry refuses to leave town. Deborah realizes that he will never leave his sisters and walks out of his life. When Harry finds out that Lettie's inability to find a suitable house after six months and her illness were just manipulations to drive Deborah away, something in him snaps.

Based on a play, this film proved somewhat controversial. Censorship would not allow the original ending, so five different endings were filmed and shown in preview. The ending that was chosen is derivative, drawing on a device used successfully in the past.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I really loved the way it ended, in spite of some people seeing it as a cop-out. I liked it because of my sympathy for Harry, so well portrayed by George Sanders, who was cast against type here.

Geraldine Fitzgerald gives a fantastic performance as the awful Lettie, an unbelievable shrew. Fitzgerald was perfect. Macgill is excellent as well, likable because she sincerely wants the best for Harry, and annoying because she's a whiner. Ella Raines made a lovely Deborah.

Very entertaining - I loved it!

Robert Siodmak directs this psychological film noir that is based on the Broadway play Uncle Harry by Thomas Job. It stars George Sanders, Ella Raines, Geraldine Fitzgerald & Moyna MacGill. The story follows Harry Quincey (Sanders) a shy clothes designer in small town New England. He lives with his two sisters, the pretty but manipulative Lettie (Fitzgerald) and the more scatty and care free Hester (MacGill). Into his life comes the gorgeous Deborah Brown (Raines) who quickly brings colour to his otherwise dull existence. But Lettie is far from impressed and sets about doing all she can to stop the couple getting married and living together. Her actions will have dire consequences for all of the Quincey family.

Though falling some way short of the noir standards of Siodmak's best genre efforts ("The Killers"/"Criss Cross"), this none the less is a dandy piece dealing in various forms of obsession. Finding that it's produced by Joan Harrison gives weight to the notion that this is more a "Hitchcockian" small town thriller than an overtly film noir piece. Harrison of course wrote a number of screenplays for "Hitchcock", and sure enough as the film unfolds one feels like we are involved in something the big director would have revelled in. Quite what "Hitch" would have made of the palaver surrounding the ending of the film, one can only imagine, but yet again a nifty 40s thriller is saddled with an ending that has caused division across the decades.

Because of the Hays Code, five different endings were tested for the film, with the one chosen vastly different to the one in the play. So while I personally find the existing ending quirky, and certainly not film destroying, it's sad that the incestuous elements of the source have been jettisoned and therefore taking away a crucial dark edge to the turn of events in the last quarter of the film. Harrison was incensed and promptly quit Universal Pictures in protest. With hindsight now, they could have ended the film about ten minutes earlier and it would have worked better. But cest la vie and all that.

Sanders is superb, very touching as the shy, naive designer pushed to his limit by sibling suffocation. Fitzgerald is glamorous and nails the devious side of her character with much conviction. While Raines, a touch underused due to the story, has a hard quality that puts one in mind of a certain Lauren Bacall, and that to my mind is very much a good thing. Some food for thought though, I couldn't help wonder about if the roles had been reversed. Raines playing manipulative bitch and Fitzgerald the love interest definitely cries out as a winner me thinks.

It's a conventional story, but one that has depth and boasts a director capable of crafting the right sort of itchy mood. There's no technical trickery exactly, but attention to detail exists and between them the makers have produced an intelligent and gripping film, that, in spite of some foregoing of dark emotional undercurrents, is very recommended to noir and "Hitchcockian" supporters. 7.5/10

The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry (1945)

George Sanders is a wonder of subtlety, and he rules this movie almost from secrecy he's so quiet and nondescript to a T. He lives in a small town with all the usual small town ways, including insularity. There are three women around him: a plain sister who is simple and sweet and loves him, a beautiful sister who is obsessed with keeping him a bachelor, and a newcomer, a New Yorker who is in town because of the fabric factory that dominates the town.

This is pretty much the set up, and it's plenty because it is the subtle and not so subtle interactions and cross purposes of these three women and the somewhat hapless Mr. Sanders that makes the movie. It's really funny and sad and romantic in its own quirky way. It never loses its way, and the types that each women represent get developed with clarity enough to make you really want what Sanders wants. And doesn't get.

The director Robert Siodmak would be famous soon for a series of great film noirs, but it was his next film that seems to mark a transition, "Spiral Staircase." In that, the photography soars and the sinister aspects surrounding ordinary people add a level of intrigue and fear that this movie simply doesn't want to have. And so you might in some ways find it a little plain, a little sweet without the hard edge that the nasty sister is meant to alone supply. Still, she convinces me just fine, and I rather like the confident New York woman (a little like Bacall in this way).

It does come around to Sanders, the man who committed suicide with a note saying he was just a little bored with life. You can feel that in him here, remarkably. He's so perfectly weary, and yet rather content still. In fact, one treat in the middle of things is him playing piano (he does play) and singing. A remarkable man and unusual actor, worth seeing here.

The setting is a small New England town where the residents are, according to the disembodied narrator, "not much different from yourselves", which means, of course, that they're perfectly willing to contemplate murder when a loved one becomes an insufferable nuisance. George Sanders plays an otherwise kindly bachelor forced to take drastic measures after a too-possessive younger sister spoils his plans to wed a beautiful, sophisticated big city girl. His plot backfires, naturally, and the consequences proved to be so downbeat that a bogus Little Nemo epilogue had to be added by studio censors. It never was a major motion picture, but when seen today is certainly an enjoyable and well-crafted diversion.

Previous reviewer calls the ending "electric". Well, maybe in the sense of electroshock that is used to render its subject docile and stupid. In other words, and to mix the metaphor, this film was going pretty good, with a nice "Ambersons" like feel for the more stifling conventions of American small town family life, until it was kneecapped by the Hays Office in its final minutes. Kinda surprised that Siodmak, who refused to participate in the travesty, put his name on the thing. Give it a C.

I strongly disagree with Norm Vogel's comments regarding Leonard Maltin's remark about "censorship" and the ending. Without giving the ending away, I can only say that because of the strict censorship code that existed in 1945, the ending HAD TO BE CHANGED to conform with the rules involving crime and punishment. Thus, the film is weakened in straying from the original ending that was used in the stage play on which this is based--and which had more impact.

George Sanders gives a quietly effective performance as the harried man torn between two sisters, one of whom has a neurotic stranglehold on his affections (Geraldine Fitzgerald). Interesting melodrama given taut direction by Robert Siodmak. Ella Raines is effective in a sympathetic role and Geraldine Fitzgerald is fascinating as a hypochondriac, whining sister who makes Harry's life miserable.

Again, Leonard Maltin was right--censorship had everything to do with the ending.

The Trouble with Harry is the trouble with Hollywood, the fact that the right-wing timid moguls bowed to reactionary forces and drove out much of the creativity from the movies. Their code ensured that nothing unpleasant or amoral, in their eyes, would be allowed into the cinema, so anything with an edge, or against the grain, or left of center was watered down or erased from films. All of this culminated with the Anti communist Witch Hunt which removed the last vestiges of talent, honesty, and integrity, but preserved for us such hypocrites as R Reagan. The reason many of us like the film noir is that this conservative tendency was less noticeable in the dark crime melodramas of the late 40'a and early 50's since no one cared that much about B movies. Still, when Hollywood had a chance, like in the ending in this film, they would ruin a film. In fact, censorship and its companion greed still rules American films, almost without exception.

One of the brilliant noir films that Siodmak made in the 1940s for Universal. Almost all of them are great exponents of the genre, although thematically this somewhat resents from its theatrical origin.

Anyway if inferior to Phantom Lady or The Killers, it's a very good film where Siodmak makes the most of an obsessive history of incest and possession.

The movie is full of interesting visual ideas and creates a very lugubrious, decadent and suffocating athmosphere. The actors are all wonderful, but Geraldine Fitgerald stands out as the dominant sister who can't bear to have her older brother marry the very trendy Ella Raines.

The last minute is totally unnecessary, but it is not a problem since it is so clear an addition forced by the censorship and has nothing to do with the film.

Living with his two unmarried sisters in the family mansion, a cloth designer struggles to maintain a romance against the objections of his younger sister who is a little too worried in this unusual noir entry from Robert Siodmak. The narrative has several interesting dynamics with ambiguity as to whether the sister is more concerned about possibly losing the family home or simply jealous of their intimate relationship. Unanswered questions also abound in terms of how and why the brother has come to be so subservient, letting his sisters dominate his life. With so much left up in the air, the first hour of the film is an uneven ride, but the final twenty minutes are utterly gripping with a series of thought-provoking twists thrown into the mix. The very last twist admittedly does not quite work (apparently it was forced on by the censors), but the character dynamics are otherwise excellent in this final stretch of the movie. With good performances all round, this is an easy film to recommend for the bits and pieces that do work. The script may not be airtight, but this is still a solid portrait of guilt, rivalry and tension between grown siblings who are still as petty as children at times.

...or ALMOST normal I should say. Plus for once Geraldine Fitzgerald is given a part that she can sink her teeth into instead of the many bland "pass the salt" parts she otherwise got.

So George Sanders plays Harry Quincey, brother of Hester (Moyna McGill), and Lettie (Geraldine Fitzgerald). Hester is a widow. Lettie and Harry have never married and are now middle aged. They were once a wealthy prominent family, but lost their money in the Depression, and all they have left of their fortune is their sprawling old mansion. Harry supports his sisters by working in the mill as a pattern designer. It was a long social fall, especially if you consider that the siblings were grown when it happened - they can remember the trappings of wealth - but they have seemed to adjust well. Harry likes to joke with the younger workers at the mill, and enjoys a night out once a week at his "club" where other male townsfolk congregate, play piano, and drink beer.

Lettie...well, she never really had to adjust. She either feigns illness or is a hypochondriac, probably a little bit of both. This allows her to pretty much just lie around the big house all day. And she has basically replaced both husband and father with Harry, to whom she closely clings to the point where her attention seems somewhat incestuous, but just emotionally so.

And then one day a "fashion expert" from New York comes to the plant where Harry works - Ella Raines as Deborah. She is a good 15 years younger than Harry, but the two end up falling in love. This is something Lettie didn't count on! Harry getting married! So the plan is that Hester and Lettie will find some other place to live, but months pass and Lettie claims no house in town for rent will do. Lettie's passive aggressive tactics eventually work, and Deborah breaks up with Harry and returns to New York. Later there is news of her marriage to someone else. Afterwards, Lettie makes a remarkable recovery from a serious illness she was feigning and leaves Harry fuming. The final straw is when he finds out Lettie did something else, unrelated, months before, in spite of how Harry felt. Harry now realizes Lettie does not just depend on him, she uses him to always get her way. And looking at some poison Lettie had bought months earlier stashed in a desk, Harry is thinking there is only one way out and he is not thinking suicide either.

So now we are in Hitchcock territory, but like with Hitchcock, these things rarely work out as planned. If you want to know what I mean watch and find out.

This is a great little noir that bothers to incorporate the Great Depression into its plot but not the very recently ended - as in days - WWII. People were probably ready for an escape from that almost four year nightmare, the Depression seemed far away by now, and this little film fit the bill. Highly recommended.

A remarkable George Sanders stars in Siodmak's fourth noir for Universal, "The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry" (1945). In the role of avuncular Harry, Sanders plays against type as a gentle nebbish henpecked by two overbearing sisters, Lettie (Geraldine Fitzgerald as the femme fatale) who has inscestuous inclinations, and Hester (Moyna MacGill), a dotty widow who becomes the unintended victim of Harry's crime. A self-assured Ella Rains plays Sanders' love interest, the third point of a strange, triangular relationship. This is Siodmak's second film for producer Joan Harrison, following the successful "Phantom Lady" (1944), and the one that brought the most consternation for both--after heavy edits by the Breen Office, altering the final scene, Harrison ended her relationship with Universal and Siodmak walked off the film. The result is a fascinating artifact of the studio system and one of Siodmak's best, if least revered, noirs.

I voted 5 for "The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry", but maybe it was a bit unfair, because the film is good. I liked it, but I expected more from the title... I feel they could've done something even better with that script. Something seems to be missing. I think that what is most accomplished in this picture is the idea of "incest", because you can't deny there is some sort of sexual attraction between Harry (George Sanders) and Lettie (Geraldine Fitzgerald). That is shown in a subtle way and it is, in my opinion, one of the themes of the film.

The other theme is of course that dependence between the brother and the two sisters. The sisters depend on him for money and he depends on them to be taken care of.

I can't help comparing Siodmak's work with that of Alfred Hitchcock. It always looks like Hitchcock could do better, but then you would loose Siodmak's touch and I don't think that would be good.