The Woman in White (1948)

A painter (Gig Young) is hired to give art lessons to a young woman (Eleanor Parker). On his way to their country estate he meets a mysterious woman in white. He soon learns that this family has many secrets.

John Abbott plays Frederick Fairlie, the Roderick Usher-adjacent head of the household, but it’s Count Bosco (Sidney Greenstreet) that runs things. Anita Sharp-Bolster appears as, I suppose, a housekeeper. I’ve seen her in quite a few films but I don’t ever remember her.

Gig Young stole his screen name from his character in The Gay Sisters. He seems familiar to me, particularly his IMDb photo. I saw him in the forgettable Desk Set, but I feel I recognize him in his later days, but I am wholly unfamiliar with the last decade of his career. Maybe he resembles John Forsyth, who, because of his drinking, replaced him in Charlie’s Angels. In fact he had to be replaced as The Waco Kid in Blazing Saddles because his DTs were so bad. Three weeks after marrying his fifth wife, thirty three years his junior, he killed her then himself.

Based on Wilkie Collins’ book of the same name, it has been remade for film and television many times. His later book The Moonstone is considered the first modern detective/mystery novel. That story too has been adapted several times.

The Woman in White falls in the drama/mystery genre, but dips its toe into romance and supernatural themes. As hinted it does have Fall of the House of Usher vibes, but it stands on its own as a fine Victorian mystery. Perhaps not super memorable, but worth watching. AMRU 3.