Kind Lady

An excellent thriller in which an artist tries to take over a woman's life to get the fabulous 10 paintings she owns, worth a fortune. Surprisingly, five years ago I saw the 1951 remake with Ethel Barrymore and Maurice Evans in the leads, but that in no way diminished my enjoyment of this film, despite my knowing the ending. I found Aline MacMahon a bit too young for the title role in this film, but I relished Basil Rathbone as the evil artist. He's such a convincing villain. Dudley Digges and Eily Malyon are also excellent as Rathbone's accomplices, although I wondered how such a cultured man as Rathbone got involved with these lowlifes. And why is Murray Kinnell, as the doctor also in cahoots with Rathbone, involved in such a nasty undertaking? He's a real doctor, as we find out after he murders the maid he catches trying to call the police; he fills out a death certificate. Doris Lloyd, playing a friend of MacMahon in this film played the maid, Rose, in the remake. The critics liked the remake better, but I felt both films are on par with each other. See both films and you decide.

This is a great example of an original film and its remake being nearly identical. Perhaps the remake is a tiny bit better, but they are just so close that if you've seen one, there's no reason to see both.

Both are extremely frightening movies--more so than many "horror films" because the terror is more believable and threatening. It all starts when a nice rich lady helps out a supposedly nice guy down on his luck (Basil Rathbone). Soon, Rathbone's entire family is living in the woman's home and the doctor advises the sick wife and baby stay there until they are able to be moved. However, after a few days, it becomes apparent that they are NOT ill and the family is milking the woman's kindness for all its worth. When she tries to throw them out, the family refuses and have replaced the servants with a band of thieves who terrorize and bleed the woman of her money! It's all very tough to watch, as the people are so evil and cruel and you really get pulled into her nightmare. However, for lovers of suspense films, it's an excellent picture. Just be warned that it is pretty intense stuff--definitely not a film for the kids!

Kind Lady (1935)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Decent drama has a kind, rich recluse (Aline MacMahon) inviting a stranger (Basil Rathbone) into her home. Everything starts off fine but soon the stranger takes the woman hostage and invites his strange "friends" into the house. This is an extremely bizarre little film that has been outlived by the 1951 remake but this film here manages to be quite effective even though the directing is highly lacking. The biggest problem with the film is its rather timid direction, which really doesn't deliver a very good pace or enough tension. The tension is one thing that's really lacking and it's a shame because the story itself is so good as are the performances. Rathbone clearly steals the film as the maniac who has to come off so charming to get into the house and then slowly lose it as the more psychotic side comes out. Rathbone never gets enough credit for being such a good character actor, which is a real shame because most people just remember him as Sherlock Holmes. While he was masterful in that role, he did just as impressive work outside of it. The snake like charm makes this a must see for fans of his. MacMahan also delivers a great performance as she perfectly fits the role and the kindness she does display is quite touching yet she also brings a naive touch that makes it easy to understand why someone could take advantage of her. Mary Carlisle, Frank Albertson and Nola Luxford add nice support. Donald Meeks has a brief role as well. In the end, due to the great performances, you can't help but feel a bit letdown that the final film isn't as great as the cast but there's still enough here to make this one worth seeing at least once.

I suspect that most film fans are familiar with Ethel Barrymore's portrayal of the rich spinster woman whose house is taken over by a gang of grifters. This earlier version with Aline McMahon in the title role is not that often shown. That is a pity because McMahon is just wonderful in the role. It also apparently set a pattern for her playing woman older than herself.

In the tradition of no good deed goes unpunished McMahon finds a starving a pitiful artist on the doorstep of her London townhouse. That is Basil Rathbone who presents such a pitiful figure that she takes him in. Pretty soon he's got himself a wife and baby there and gradually takes over the running of the house. A whole bunch of others move in to take over the various servant positions including Dudley Digges, Murray Kinnell, Eily Malyon, Justine Chase, and Barbara Shields.

It's alluded to, but never rightly said that this group has worked this game before of systematically looting a place and then moving on. We know that these people are not above murder to achieve their ends.

The women of the group are a low class group of scavengers, the men however Rathbone, Digges, and Kinnell exude an air of menace in their performances. They've really covered all bases, keeping McMahon a prisoner in her own home with no contact with the outside world. To the outside world the story was given out that she had gone to America.

Sometimes a film like this even with no unearthly creatures in the story can step over into the horror film genre. This is what Kind Lady does, these grifters are not lovable con artists, they are more frightening than any kind of ghoul because they are real.

Fans of Aline McMahon and Basil Rathbone should catch this one.

Before watching this movie I had never seen Aline MacMahon in such an important role, 'cos here she's the star of the picture and she really is great...she was such an actress!!! Her acting technique is so contemporary, her playing so sincere....she's lovely.

I must admit that I expected more of the film as whole, from its first half hour, but anyway it's a very good movie, it has an entertaining storyline and excellent performances all around, especially by miss MacMahon and Basil Rathbone, and such a talented large supporting cast! (Dudley Digges, Eily Malyon, Frank Albertson, etc.)

MacMahon plays the endearing Miss Herries, the extremely `kind' and single society lady of the title, who lives alone in her big house in London, surrounded by beautiful objects, who learns the hard way, that one has to be careful of being so kind and generous, in a world like ours..Basil Rathbone's character really deceived me at first, because I had no knowledge of the film's plot whatsoever, so I won't tell you more.

This is a `B' picture, but for sure much more entertaining and fulfilling than many other A pictures of the period..and it has a surprisingly short running time: 76 minutes...but many things happen in such a short period of time!