The Strange Door Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

The Strange Door Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson May 17, 2019

Literary and savvy moviegoers are familiar with the classic screen adaptations of Robert Louis Stevenson: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), Treasure Island (1934), Kidnapped (1938), and The Body Snatcher (1945) comprise seminal works that immediately come to mind. Stevenson's 1877 short story, "The Sire de Malétroit's Door", is among the Scottish author's lesser known as is its 1951 film adaptation, The Strange Door. Screenwriter Jerry Sackheim has moved the source's 16th-century setting up by two centuries in France where Sire Alain de Malétroit (Charles Laughton), a devious nobleman, decides to ensnare an unwitting patsy to marry his beautiful niece, Blanche de Malétroit (Sally Forrest). At a local tavern, Alain and his henchmen stage a fight implicating Denis de Beaulieu (Richard Stapley), the wastrel scion of a well-heeled French family whose also considered the worst roue in the country. Denis seemingly shoots dead one of the bar patrons and is chased on horseback by a mad posse. The driver of his carriage takes Denis into the country but abruptly stops without official reason. Denis flees to a large castle whose front door is surprisingly open. When Denis enters the fireplace room, he's greeted by the Sire, whose been expecting him. Denis initially thinks he'll become a house guest well taken care of but is dolefully let down when he's rendered a prisoner. The Sire is still fuming after two decades when his wife amorously took up with his brother, Edmond de Malétroit (Paul Cavanagh). The Sire's punishment for Edmond's infidelity is to incarcerate him in a barred cell which is part of his cavernous torture chamber. Voltan (Boris Karloff), the Sire's manservant, has mixed feeling for his allegiances since he also secretly fetches food for frail Edmond.

Beauty and the Beast.

Charles Laughton delivers a masterful performance as the devilish nobleman whose alternately fiendish, amusing, deceiving, and downright cruel. It's not the most original take for the screen great as director Joseph Pevney encouraged Laughton to essentially imitate the title role he played in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), the first and only Oscar he won. At least one of the movie's original critics noted this imitation as well as Laughton's memorable performance as Captain Bligh in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935). As the fall guy, Richard Stapley looks and acts a lot like Farley Granger in a fine supporting role. Boris Karloff delivers at least two memorable scenes as the sly but honorable aide to Edmond.

Universal-International's publicity campaign touted the work of ace props man Robert Laszlo who, along with three art directors, constructed "the most complete torture chamber ever used in a mo­tion picture" with "the most hor­rible devices known to men in the torture line." The studio also praised Melvin Tripple, an uncredited props man, who designed an entire cemetery for one of the film's best fight scenes. Tripple, a sculptor who worked many years in a Philadelphia monument factory before migrating to Hollywood, received a work order of 200 tombstones and was given less than 24 hours to ready them for the scene. He worked around the clock to erect the grave markers just in time for Pevney to film the scene.

The Strange Door Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Strange Door received bare-bones treatment on DVD, with Universal releasing it MOD as part of its "Vault Series" and also part of The Boris Karloff Collection. Thankfully, Kino Lorber has added a nugget-filled commentary and delivered a mostly blemish-free transfer. The film is presented in its original Academy Ratio of 1.37:1 on this MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-25. Irving Glassberg's splendid, noirish cinematography appears with crisp blacks and luminous grayscale. Silhouettes and figure shadows gracefully stand out. Kino worked from an excellent archival print. I only have a couple of quibbles. I noticed just two or three shots where print damage was fairly well-pronounced in the frame in form of speckles. If you look at Screenshot #17 and watch it in real time, you'll see a very thin vertical tramline behind the Sire's right shoulder that comes over Corbeau (William Cottrell). The feature has been encoded at an average bitrate of 29920 kbps. My video score is 4.25.

The 81-minute feature contains eight chapter breaks.

The Strange Door Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Strange Door's original monaural sound track receives an authentic DTS-HD Master Audio Dual Mono (1557 kbps, 16-bit) mix from Kino. Though the audio naturally sounds flat due to the age limitations, this is a very clean track. There's one stretch in the film where you can hear audible hiss but there are no scratches, pops, crackles, or dropouts. The cast consists of American and British actors whose speech delivery is legible and comprehensible. Joseph Gershenson served as musical director for a compilation of many scores from Universal's music library, including House of Frankenstein (1944), House of Dracula (1945), and She-Wolf of London (1946). In a segment on the group commentary, David Schecter names all of the Universal movie scores that were excerpted for this film. He calls this process "tracking." All of the scores appear to have been re-recorded for non-diegetic placement in The Strange Door.

Kino has provided optional English subtitles for the feature.

The Strange Door Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• NEW Audio Commentary by Film Historians Tom Weaver, David Schecter, and Dr. Robert J. Kiss - this group track is hosted by Tom Weaver, who also moderates and supplies archival information about the film's production and reception, mini-bios of cast members, and descriptions of certain scenes. There are also voice actors who read quotes from interviews that Weaver conducted with director Joseph Pevney and Richard Stapley. Schecter and Kiss provide scene-select commentary but the track is dominated by Weaver, who spot-timed all the remarks. He is well-organized and there are no gaps or pauses. In English, not subtitled.

• Bonus Trailers - original trailers for the Kino catalog titles Witness for the Prosecution, The Paradine Case, Black Sabbath, The Crimson Cult, and Female on the Beach. Unfortunately, no trailer is found for The Strange Door.

The Strange Door Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Strange Door came out after an extended hiatus when Universal released few monster or horror movies. The film is more period piece and suspense but there are genuine moments of horror. Who was the intended audience back in 1951-52? John L. Scott of the Los Angeles Times observed: "Those theatergoers who like a morbid atmosphere complete with castle equipped with sliding panels, a torture chamber and other jolly little items will en­joy themselves. Having sat through nonhorror movies that were little terrors themselves, I rather enjoyed this out-and-out shiver opus." The Boston Globe's Marjory Adams echoed Scott but added implicitly that the film would also appeal to fans of detective novels: "This is a picture designed for mys­tery lovers and for those film fans who like to shudder..." The Strange Door originally had a mixed critical reception but I believe it holds up very well and should appeal to all fans of classic film. Next, I'd like to see Kino release the picture's unofficial sequel, The Black Castle (1952). The transfer and audio presentation deserve very high grades. I'm particularly pleased with the commentary and the amount of trivia packed into it. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED and a must purchase for fans of Laughton and Karloff.