Tela de araña

"Uncle Silas" (1864) was probably Sheridan Le Fanu's (Irish writer) masterpiece and his only work still read today. A macabre mystery novel and a classic of Gothic horror. Contrary to most of Le Fanu production, always dealing with ghosts and the supernatural, "Uncle Silas" deals only with real people, TOO REAL...

Translated and adapted to the big screen in 1947 by the Argentinian movie-making industry under two different titles: "El misterioso tío Silas" ("The Mysterious Uncle Silas") or "La telaraña" ("The Spiderweb"), with Elisa Galvé as the naive young, vulnerable and unprotected newly heir to her father's fortune, relentlessly pursued by several shady characters under different pretenses only to grab her money.

There are good people that try to help her to get rid of those undesirables but... everybody seems to be so nice..

The storyline makes for an enjoyable film, shot in black and white and with a beautiful and very young Elisa Galvé who, for totally unknown reasons wears, during the whole movie, false eyelashes so outlandish they must have belonged to Sally Bowles ("Cabaret"), ruining with them her exquisite delicate features and the whole movie of course.

The little I know about the 19th century doesn't include enormous false eyelashes, especially on a rigidly educated high class young lady... This is a major flaw, followed by her wardrobe. A nightmare. Paco Jaumandreu was a very well known Argentinian dress designer (Eva Peron's close friend and confidant) but it seems that for period costumes he either didn't have the knack, the specialized workrooms or the documentation. All her dresses look like made last weekend with love by her aunt, that wasn't quite an expert with thread and scissors... Fortunately the black and white photography and shadowy sets conceal someway this Hellzapoppin' of a wardrobe.

The movie is watchable --no big shakes-- although some of the actors are wooden in a theatrical way and deliver their lines as if speaking from the pulpit. Elisa Galvé, surprisingly, was a very good actress. And so was María Santos (her personal maid), a character actress that at the time must have intervened in a thousand movies. "Silas" was AWFUL! Not to mention Galvé's "father"... (was the same actor playing two roles? the copy on "You Tube" was so bad that everything was quite out of focus. As I said on another review, Argentinian movies up to the seventies, are only to be watched by Argentinians...