The Spiral Staircase (1946) on Netflix
Approved19461h 23mDramaHorrorMystery
A killer is stalking women with disabilities in a 1916 Vermont village. Helen, who cannot speak, cares for the bedridden Mrs. Warren, and Dr. Parry offers to take her to Boston.
- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb7.3/1012,704 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes86%
Trailer
Plot summary
Helen, unable to speak, is the live-in companion of the bedridden Mrs. Warren at a large estate outside a small Vermont village in 1916. A woman is strangled at the village inn, the third in a string of murders of women with disabilities. The household also holds Mrs. Warren's stepson Albert, a professor, her son Steven, a playboy just back from abroad, the housekeeper Mrs. Oates and her handyman husband, Albert's secretary Blanche, and Nurse Barker. Mrs. Warren asks Dr. Parry, Helen's friend, to take the young woman away, and he offers to bring her to Boston, where specialists may help with her voice and she can address the shock that followed her parents' deaths.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Spiral Staircase (1946)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- During filming of The Spiral Staircase, Dorothy McGuire went missing for about twenty minutes after accidentally locking herself in one of the labyrinthine rooms built in the studio basement.
- Producer David O. Selznick sold the rights to The Spiral Staircase to RKO partly to finance his Western Duel in the Sun, kept a share of the film's earnings, and gave star Dorothy McGuire a convertible as a bonus.
- Producer David O. Selznick bought the rights to Ethel Lina White's novel and originally conceived the film with Ingrid Bergman in the lead role, before RKO acquired the project from him.
- Cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca shot at low angles to give the appearance of deep shadows on screen, and to conceal the killer's identity he used director Siodmak's own eyes for the close-ups of the killer watching Helen.
- The Spiral Staircase has been cited as a forerunner of the slasher film, for its female-centric cast and for the point-of-view cinematography used in the scenes where the killer stalks his victims.
- Screenwriter Mel Dinelli and Dore Schary moved the story's setting from England to New England, a change both men believed would lend a Gothic tone to the film.
