Old-House Stars of the Silver Screen

By Peter Loewer

	Illustration Courtesy of Bill Firestone

When considering a house purchase, we all know the rules: Check for termites in the basement, click beetles in the framing, and algae on the roof. We also know that what the decision really boils down to is the psyche of the place.

In some 60 years of viewing movies and 13 of reviewing them, IÕve seen a lot of cinema houses and condosÑincluding the fun pad in Predator 2 (1990), Mr. BlandingÕs 1948 dream house (really kind of boring architecturally), and in 1968, RosemaryÕs apartment at the Dakota (too big with unfortunate neighbors). But a few hold especially warm spots in my criticÕs heart for featuring an old dwelling so crucial to the plot or ambiance it might have been featured above the starsÕ names in the credits.

The Uninvited (1944) starred Ray Milland, Ruth Hussey, Gail Russell, and for readers whose provenance approaches the Victorian, Cornelia Otis Skinner. ItÕs one of the best ghost stories ever filmed, with spirits residing in a beautiful abandoned mansion on the edge of a cliff in Cornwall, overlooking a usually seething Atlantic. ItÕs a steal at 1,200 pounds, so a brother and sister snap it up from the daughter of the original owner, now living elsewhere with her grandfather. The house has large windows, great chandeliers, a magnificent staircase, and in color would be featured in House & Garden. They hear unexplained sounds during the night and see a wispy apparition accompanied by the smell of mimosa. But considering the original cost, well worth it.

Deception (1946) featured Bette Davis as concert pianist Christine Radcliffe; Paul Henreid as Karel Novak, the cellist she loves; and Claude Rains (who throws all restraint to the roof) as the world-famous composer Alex Hollenius. From the opening shots of ChristineÕs marvelous apartment atop a warehouse to AlexÕs incredible abode on Fifth Avenue, Anton Grot, the production designer, wielded a grand brush. Metropolitan Home would drool as we follow Christine and Karel into the freight elevator, then up the stairs and through the fire door into a sprawling studio apartment with a huge skylight, Chinese dynasty chairs, a wall of windows with the Queens-Midtown Bridge in the distance, a kitchen you would die for (even today), a Picasso hanging over the original Smilow-Thielle chest, and massive brass pulls on the closet doors. When we finally arrive at AlexÕs townhouse, with its rococo iron-grill door, the Siamese cat named Shatzi and aloof cockatoo, weÕre almost inured to the chandeliers, the Louis XIV walls, the 10« palms, and the glints of silver everywhere. No wonder it all winds up in murder!

Sunset Boulevard (1950) not only had Gloria Swanson vamping her way down a 1920s staircase but also William Holden floating face down in the swimming pool. The house would be a place for anybody to die for and what makes it better is that itÕs an actual house (not a collection of sets), built in 1924 for William Jenkins and part of a divorce settlement for the second Mrs. J. Paul Getty. The address, 3810 Wilshire Boulevard, is now the site of a 22-storey Getty Oil Building. Strangely enough, although it was the perfect house for SwansonÕs washed-up-actress character Norma Desmond, there was originally no swimming pool, and once built for HoldenÕs death scene, it sat empty and forlorn because no one installed a method of circulating the water. Oh, well, it was still a great place for a picnic! And it was such a popular spot that in 1955 the house was used again for the final scenes of James DeanÕs great Rebel Without a Cause.

That year also saw the end-all of adaptive reuse jobs, the old mill that Rock Hudson painstakingly remodels in Douglas SirkÕs marvelous soap opera All That Heaven Allows. At first gardener Rock lives in a greenhouse so he can share life with his fledgling trees. Then he meets Jane Wyman, who tells him that the old mill is much too beautiful to be torn down for an orchard. So Rock hand planes the banister, makes hand-hewn oak shutters for the huge muntined window, and essentially creates from kitchen to living-room floor a house for all timeÑand most desires. Then at movieÕs end, when you think youÕve experienced everything remodeling has to offer, a stag comes to the window to greet JaneÕs character so life can go on, even for a woman in love with a man 10 years her junior. (If youÕre into gardening donÕt forget RockÕs advice that a golden raintree will only bloom when growing next to a house where love abounds.)

The Haunting (1963) is one of the scariest films IÕve ever seen and one of the reasons for its success is the incredible house used for the hauntings. Who can overlook a mansion where a visiting parapsychologist says: ÒScandal, murder, insanity, suicideÑthe history of Hill House had everything I wanted. It was an evil house from the beginningÑa house that was born bad.Ó So welcome to a place where the ornately moulded doors actually bend from an otherworldly presence, and chills are so bone-rattling that the largest furnace canÕt warm you up. This 19th-century house, Ettington Park, is real but situated in England rather than the movieÕs alleged New England setting.

And speaking of haunted old houses, letÕs give an ectoplasmic salute to the new (1999) House on Haunted Hill. The first (and far better, from 1958) starred Vincent Price and featured skeletons rising from the wine cellar. But in the second, production designer David Klassen dispatched with the Victorian touches and created an insane-asylum-cum-house in the Òmonolithic styleÓ of Albert Speer, the infamous (and normally uninspiring) architect of HitlerÕs Third Reich. ÒIt was very exciting,Ó said Klassen, Òto design a psychiatric institute for the criminally insane in this very looming, large, and clean style [as] it really draws the audience into the setting.Ó

Finally, thereÕs The Sandpiper, the 1965 fictional joining of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, directed by Vincente Minnelli, which features Òa shack on a deserted beach.Ó Some shack: With a rippling Pacific on view through the large windows and sunsets of an orange so intense that they would make a poppy blush, this beach house on stilts nestles enchantingly against the forests of Big Sur. Featured, among other decor, are a great Firehood stove, a rustic kitchen table piled with fresh tomatoes, Indian prints, Mexican rugs, and an inviting leather campaign chair. A pottery jug out of a Cezanne still-life overflows with enough dried grasses to make a conservationist weep. Instead of a stag, we have a wounded sandpiper recovering from a broken wing.

Any old-house lover with a VCR or DVD player can reside in these houses for a couple hours of vicarious chills or overwhelming envyÑand sometimes thatÕs all we can afford.

Peter Loewer, who lives in Asheville, North Carolina, is a movie reviewer for NPR stations and has written more than 30 books on gardening and natural history.


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