My first acquaintance with the HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES was in 1963 when I was 11 years old. I read the CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED comic book and liked it because of the idea of a family curse that transcends generations. About the same time as I was enjoying my CI version, a heavily revised and altered version of the book appeared as a segment in a movie version of Hawthorne’s TWICE TOLD TALES. That version starred Vincent Price in the role of the evil brother which is what people would have expected in 1963. However in Universal’s 1940 adaptation, when Price was just starting out, he played the role of the good brother. It was only his second starring role. The first had been in THE INVISIBLE MAN RETURNS earlier that year.
Universal, at that time, was not the huge entertainment conglomerate that it is today. It was a much smaller studio that made the occasional big budget feature but relied primarily on smaller B pictures that could be made quickly and almost always turn a profit. Surprisingly, considering its literary pedigree, SEVEN GABLES was conceived as a B movie all the way. It featured no marquee name stars and was intended to be part of a double feature even though it ran an A length 90 minutes. The movie that it was co-billed with was the Boris Karloff-Bela Lugosi thriller BLACK FRIDAY which ran for only 70 minutes and which Universal considered to be the top movie of the two. Naturally more people came to see Karloff & Lugosi than Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Although budgeted and marketed as a B movie, SEVEN GABLES was granted the use of three soundstages to create the look of the house. The interior sets that were designed and created for it are as good as those for any A picture. The replica of the exterior of the house (which is a real place in Salem, Massachusetts that is over 340 years old) was so well constructed that it still stands today on the Universal backlot and can be visited as part of their studio tour. Not only were the sets outstanding but the cast assembled for it was top notch with the two top billed actors, Vincent Price & George Sanders, going on to have major careers while actress Margaret Lindsay, who supported Bette Davis in her star vehicles of the 1930s, should have had one.
SEVEN GABLES is set in the early 19th century. Brothers Clifford & Jaffrey Pyncheon actively dislike each other. Clifford (Price) is a musician who wants to marry his cousin Hepzibah (Lindsay) and move to New York. Jaffrey (Sanders) is a lawyer who believes there is a hidden treasure in the house and is appalled when their father plans to sell it. During a heated argument with Clifford, the father suffers a stroke and dies. Jaffrey accuses Clifford of killing their father and uses his influence to have Clifford imprisoned. Hepzibah inherits the house and closes it in th up for 20 years. She and a niece, Phoebe, open a thrift shop which keeps them going until Clifford is paroled. Together the three plan to get back at Jaffrey who has grown rich in the slave trade but still wants the treasure he believes is in the house.
The supporting cast features 3 of my favorite character players. Cecil Kellaway who specialized in genial old men , Alan Napier who was a member of Val Lewton’s stock company, and B movie stalwart Dick Foran whose career spanned 40 years. The Austrian born director Joe May (pronounced MY) had made one of my all time favorite silent movies, the two part, 4 hour exotic adventure film, THE INDIAN TOMB (1921) with Conrad Veidt. May’s experience in the German cinema of the 1920s is put to good use here with detailed sets, subjective lighting, and fluid camerawork. SEVEN GABLES is one of those unheralded movies that deserves a quality release. While the budget Universal Vault DVD has decent sound and a good picture, a restoration with subtitles would be most welcome.
The Capsule Critic 