Lester Cole

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Gothic melodrama is given an extensive make-over for this enjoyable film version. The screenplay has a number of significant changes from the novel and is set in 1828 with the Pyncheon family on the verge of bankruptcy. The two Pyncheon brothers, Clifford (Vincent Price) and Jeffrey (George Sanders), are at loggerheads about the proposed sale of the ancestral mansion, Seven Gables. When the family patriarch dies in an argument with Clifford the scheming Jeffrey sees an opportunity to have his brother arrested for murder. Sentenced to life imprisonment Clifford leaves behind his fiancé Hepzibah (Margaret Lindsay) who retreats into seclusion behind the walls of Seven Gables. “The House of the Seven Gables” is an absorbing slice of Gothic melodrama despite the many liberties taken with Hawthorne’s source novel. Lester Cole’s screenplay is fantastically wrought but intelligent and is full of wonderful speeches and dialogue. Director Joe May provides the story with tension and an unsettling atmosphere throughout despite a bit of a lull in the mid-section. The limited budget of the film is obvious, but May still manages to make good use of the frugal sets and settings. The three leads are all first class – the great Vincent Price is all silky charm and emotion chewing his lines with unrestrained gusto, while George Sanders is his exact opposite: emotion free and arrogance personified, delivering his lines with a clipped belligerence. Hepzibah’s transition from a warm, cheerful, beautiful young woman into a dark, dour, black-clad spinster is a great piece of acting by Margaret Lindsay – it is a performance that is hugely convincing and highly touching. Overall “The House of the Seven Gables” has a number of obvious flaws, but despite that it is a great atmospheric melodrama that is full of twists and turns and characterised by some fine acting performances.… (més)