charles laughton Tagged Articles at Cinematical

In researching this list, I made two realizations: most horror films don't bother with supporting casts; the supporters are often ghosts and monsters and supernatural forces (the other humans tend not to listen). And also, there are more great performances by women in horror films. Consider just the list of women who were nominated for -- or won -- Oscars for horror films: Patty McCormack, Janet Leigh, Ruth Gordon, Linda Blair, Ellen Burstyn, Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Sigourney Weaver, Kathy Bates, Jodie Foster, Juliette Lewis, Toni Collette, etc. Perhaps women are more intuitively in touch with the supernatural. Either way, I think I came up with a pretty good list:

1. Maria Ouspenskaya in The Wolf Man (1941)
Her name's a mouthful, but once you learn to say it, you'll never forget it. She was born in 1876, which put her at about 65 when The Wolf Man was made. She was a theater actor, before the movies were invented, she became an acting teacher and she received two Oscar nominations prior to this role. She plays Maleva (what a great name!), the old gypsy woman, and mother to Bela (Bela Lugosi), who possesses the knowledge of all things werewolf. With eyes like obsidian, her line readings are quiet, mysterious, intelligent, and though she's practically half the size of star Lon Chaney Jr., she towers over him.

2. Christina Ricci in Addams Family Values (1993)
Every once in a while the movie gods smile down and create something wonderful, like the moment that young Ricci walked into the "Addams Family" auditions, hoping for the role of Wednesday. The resulting movie, released in 1991, wasn't very good, but the sequel was much improved and Ricci was so good in both that she clearly announced the beginning of a fascinating career full of brave, unusual choices. With her round, pale face, huge eyes and tiny mouth shaped like a talon, she was scary and funny and just a little bit odd, and when she grew older, she took on a dangerous kind of sexiness. She could be the direct genre descendant of Elsa Lanchester or Barbara Steele.

Cruelty is a necessary element of film noir, but it usually comes in the ending -- the last-minute reveal that he never really loved her or that she was only out for money, or that the wrong man will go down for the crime after all, because the system just doesn't care. The interesting thing about The Suspect is that cruelty is woven into the premise -- it paints the wholly improbable scenario of having a twenty-something secretary with the drop-dead movie star looks of Ella Raines (see above) fall in love with her boss, Charles Laughton. Yes, that Charles Laughton. Stop laughing, I'm serious. Laughton's character can hardly believe his good luck, and decides not to bother Ella Raines with the factoid that he has a wife at home. After what we can surmise has been a life of endless toil and trouble, he's not about to mess up this good thing that has fallen into his lap. The scenes where Laughton returns home from a hard day's work to be confronted by his shrieking horror of a wife (Rosalind Ivan) are entirely redundant -- the audience has already forgiven him for adultery, and is ready to forgive him for murder as well. In fact, we want him to murder his wife.