Either a hopeless genre mishmash or a brilliant psychological thriller gone a bit wrong – probably both – 1945’s The Unseen was sold as a follow-up of sorts to the spooky thriller from the previous year, The Uninvited. In fact they have little to do with each other beyond the same director (Lewis Allen), one actor (Gail Russell) and that negative “Un” modifier.
Russell had an “Introducing” credit in The Uninvited but she’s really the star here, though first-billed Joel McCrea would probably have disagreed. She plays a nanny brought in to tame the two children of widower David Fielding (McCrea) after their original nanny, Maxine, is mysteriously suddenly let go.
There’s an aspect of Rebecca’s the second Mrs De Winter about Russell’s Elizabeth – the stand-in who cannot measure up to the original and best – and Maxine hangs over the entire film, a shadowy absence who seems to have had unusual sway with David’s two kids, surly Barnaby (Richard Lyon) and blabbermouth Ellen (Nona Griffith).
Standing as an even more evident negative space is the deserted house next door to David Fielding’s, nailed shut for over a dozen years but harbouring something, it’s suggested. Maybe it’s whoever killed that innocent woman murdered before the opening credits, a killing young Barnaby seems to know something about.
Where does the avuncular Dr Evans fit into all this? A neighbour, he seems to be in and out of the Fielding house whenever he fancies. Why hire a character actor of Herbert Marshall’s standing for the role? Clearly there is also more than meets the eye here.
Unseen murderer, unseen Maxine, unseen house, unseen first Mrs Fielding, mysteriously coming/going doctor – writers Hagar Wilde and Raymond Chandler spin these elements together, trying to work up an unsettling Freudian drama out of genre elements and not quite getting there. The final straw is the introduction of a romantic subplot between lonely David and gorgeous Elizabeth.
This not only doesn’t work tonally, or in terms of the McCrea/Russell chemistry, but it kicks the legs out from under a potentially squirm-inducing narrative about the corruption of young Barnaby, symbolised by the presence of an (also unseen) mysterious dark passage which connects up the Fielding house with the derelict one next door.
Nothing really stacks up psychologically though Russell is excellent initially, playing young Elizabeth as smart and likeable, before losing her way a bit. Why is Russell suddenly reading her lines in that rote thick-voiced B-movie way having started so well? While you’re trying to work out whether she is any good or not (either verdict acceptable), look at the way cinematographer John Seitz lights her. The most smouldering nanny that ever there was.
He is one of the greats though – he did Sunset Blvd., no more need be said
Because Chandler is involved you might expect witty one liners. Actual zingers are scarce but the dialogue does bounce along. It has verve and so do quite a few of the scenes. Wait for the arrival of Maxine, who eventually swoops into the film and delivers a whole load of plot-altering innuendo before swooping out again. Phyllis Brooks puts in a great performance as the unsettling previous nanny, though her character makes little sense in plot terms. Again, it’s as if there’s a competing, much grimmer film bubbling about below the surface.
There are flappy locations (Salem Alley, where the initial murder took place) and flappy characters (Mrs Taygarth, owner of the abandoned house, “furnace guy” Chester, who appears suddenly in the basement and then is gone again). Chandler and Wilde try to get everyone and everything in but are defeated by the task. A pity.
There is something good in here. By good I mean a properly unpleasant horror movie. Maybe the 1940s just didn’t lend itself to that sort of thing. There was still a war on, after all.
The Unseen – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2025
