The Maze

The story is somewhat ordinary: "haunted" Scottish Castle, mysterious comings and goings, morose servants. Two women saying "I wonder where that door leads to." It turns in a bit of an unexpected direction, but all in all, the story and acting by themselves are worthless.

What makes this a recommended film is the way it is layered, its careful architecture. The reason is because the director was in fact a celebrated set designer/production manager. He thought in terms of spaces.

More: the thing was filmed in 3D. I did not see it that way, but the layering, the sense of containment was rare, and thrilling.

Readers often ask me about my notion of "architectural" films and I reluctantly send them to Welles' "Othello." But that film has other mysteries woven into it. Here, I have an example that is essentially pure.

One narrative device should be mentioned. We have a narrator that frames the thing, the way Ronald Reagan used to frame that TeeVee show presented by General Electric, and Hictcock did his show. She has the same manner, but herself is located spatially.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

A woman and her aunt go to Scotland to locate her evasive fiancé. This is a much-maligned film because of its denouement, but up to that point, it's interesting, well-acted, eerie, and with fine set design (by William Cameron Menzies, developed for 3-D projection). Veronica Hurst is captivating and genteel, sort of a chic British Marilyn Monroe, still in love with Richard Carlson, who is hiding a family secret in his forbidding castle; there are even bats in the belfry! It moves leisurely until the final extraordinary set-piece, when Hurst and her aunt (Katherine Emery, also the narrator), sneak out of the castle in the night to venture into the maze (pre - "The Shining" - 1980) and find what they're looking for in its center. As a kid, I always remembered this sequence - there's nothing scarier (or claustrophobic) than not finding your way out of a 10-foot high maze of hedges. Naturally, the two women get separated, setting the stage for engrossing suspense with horrific music. The final result is mildly disappointing really, since Carlson's epilogue {a "Psycho" (1960) style postscript} makes some sense to all the goings-on, even provoking sympathy. Worth seeing.

I recently saw this film at a 3-D film festival in Hollywood. It was in polarized 3-D (Gray glasses not red & blue) It was so much fun to watch this film with an audience, the print was excellent and the 3-D perfect. The performances were over the top and that added to the fun, the surprise ending (that we aren't supposed to share with fellow movie go'ers, at least according to the movie trailer and poster) had people howling with laughter. By today's standards this is probably more comedy than horror but with the added dimension of 3-D (complete with cobwebs and bats coming out of the screen) this film was an entertaining romp into 50's horror.

You know, this is not a terrible movie. It's atmospheric and mysterious and the female lead plays her part well...she reminds me of Grace Kelly. Richard Carlson is always good. The conclusion is creative and imaginative, and unlike some viewers who reported on this movie, I actually liked the ending. Interesting notion. They could only do so much with the special effects back then, but I can look past that.

One thing this movie has going for it that too few movies do these days is good-heartedness. There aren't any truly "bad guys." Everybody is acting primarily out of a desire to do good and to look out for the interests of others rather than themselves, and I was left with a feeling of goodwill rather than the typical sense of foreboding and doom that so often is the central theme of movies like this one right to the end.

A waste of time? No, I wouldn't say so. I'd say it's worth a watch.

The Maze is directed by William Cameron Menzies and adapted to screenplay by Daniel Ullman from a story by Maurice Sandoz. It stars Richard Carlson, Veronica Hurst, Katherine Emery, Michael Pate, John Dodsworth and Hillary Brooke. Music is by Marlin Skiles and cinematography by Harry Neumann.

Scotsman Gerald MacTeam (Carlson) suddenly breaks off his engagement to Kitty Murray (Hurst) and moves to his recently deceased uncle's castle in the Scottish highlands. Kitty wonders why and decides to travel to Craven Castle with her auntie Edith (Emery). Upon arriving they find Gerald a changed man, prematurely aged and acting in a most peculiar way. Just what is going on at this mysterious castle? What is the secret of the big maze out in the grounds?

One of the early ventures into stereoscopic filming, The Maze is a delightfully off-kilter movie. As pretty much anyone who has seen it can attest, the ending, the culmination of great building by Menzies, is so far off the scale it borders on the preposterous, and for many it ruins the picture. Certainly myself had to rewind to check what I had just seen, for I felt like I must have nodded off and slipped into some sort of bad liquor induced dream!

That said, for an hour this is a triumph of atmospherics and set design. Menzies and Neumann cover the story with foggy exteriors and murky shadows, while the interior of the castle is a classic case of Gothic horror textures, with Skiles' musical accompaniments are perfectly evocative. The narrative smoothly moves along with the air of mystery hanging heavy, where the visitors to Craven are locked in their rooms at night, thus at night from the gap under the doors of the bedrooms a slow moving shadow is glimpsed roaming the corridors. What is it? What is it in the distant maze that is shuffling around? Leaving weird footprints around the grounds?

The characters are a stock group for the story, with intrepid girls investigating, shifty servants (naturally), well intentioned friends and lord of the manor harbouring a secret. Menzies fluidly uses the castle and grounds for atmospheric effects, neatly placing the characters within the palpable sense of dread and tragedy, and there truly are some striking scenes, especially the build up sequence to the revelation at film's climax. Then it's that ending...

On reflection the makers missed a trick, the chance to really create a terrifying shock, but you have to say it's also a product of its time and budget. And whilst I understand fully the groans and laughs that derail what has gone before, there is a sadness right there in the reveal, a touching tragedy that bears thought even if the ludicrousness of it all is practically impossible to forgive. 7/10