Old, Dark and Hammy.

I’m watching James Whale's ‘classic’ film The Old Dark House in instalments at the moment. It has atmosphere aplenty, and Horace, his sister and the ‘uncivilised brute’ Morgan are pretty splendid, but the rest of the characters are a bit hammed up.  There are rather too many ‘darlings’ in the script for my taste, and the feckless Lothario’s fixation with the chorus girl’s wet feet is… what should we say… tawdry? And much of the script is a button short of stylish. Example:

The chorus girl braves the storm (thereby getting her feet wet for a second time) to join the feckless Lothario who is out in the garage fetching his bottle of whisky.

‘What are you doing here?’ he asks (hopefully.)

‘I was frightened,’ she replies (provocatively.) ‘Somebody slammed the door in my face.’

‘It was probably just the wind.’

‘Oh no, I know wind when I see it.’

There’s more where that came from, but I expect I’ll see it through. I usually finish what I start.