Austrian ex-clown Anton Walbrook leads the way as Herman Suvorin, a lowly worm Captain of Engineers, in the 19th century tale of Russian uncanny, THE QUEEN OF SPADES. This post-war classic is Thorold Dickinson’s remake of Alexander Pushkin’s oft revisited short story, Pikovaya dama. The title and central conceit of Dickinson’s earlier GASLIGHT (also featuring Walbrook) have joined the 21st century lexicon as a way of describing the process of deliberately contriving to convince someone that they have become insane; with THE QUEEN OF SPADES, Dickinson tells the story of a man who has driven himself insane though his own obsession.
There is an animated, light and protracted preamble to the film which was by some interpreted as padding; during this introductory stretch, the protagonist Suvorin declares to his gambling friends that he is unwilling to “risk the necessary to obtain the superfluous”. However, it is worth persevering past the gypsy music and ostrich feathered hats, to witness his unholy descent to a point where he becomes willing to risk his hard-earned gold, to sacrifice the heart of an innocent woman, to sacrifice his very soul to sate his greed.
Suvorin is ranting his way through a mid-life crisis. He is the black sheep in a social circle of privileged gadabouts. Anton Walbrook’s Teutonic snarl and lilt loom out like a swelling shadow against the BBC prattle of the milquetoast buffoons at the card table. Boggle-eyed as Hyde and mesmeric as Dracula, Suvorin’s passion is finally focussed when he finds his calling in a mouldy old bookshop. Here, he happens upon the legend of Countess Ranevskaya, who sold her soul to Satan in return for learning the secret of the card game Faro. The game of Faro (a favoured moneymaker for John “Doc” Holliday) was, during the height of its popularity, damned as a destroyer of families and a dangerous cause of poverty. Hoyle’s Rules of Games warned that honest and unrigged Faro banks, used for dealing the cards, simply did not exist. Suvorin is familiar with this game: his friends play it constantly, for laughs and giggles. However, Suvorin is unable to participate in the gambling, the womanising and the drinking due to simple and pitiful lack of rubles.
Edith Evans’ natural charisma and depth of character blow Walbrook off the screen.
The idiotically simple and dangerously addictive game of Faro is an early 19th century version of “Snap”, and when Suvorin first encounters the aged Countess Ranevskaya, it is as though he and she are two matching cards suddenly exposed to one another. Her frail neck; her wizened apple of a head bowing under the weight of a dusty wig; her bent body drawing her crinoline carriage across the floor – the pomander and urine musk are easy to imagine. The tap of her stick and the rustle of silk are indelible on the ear. This venerated stage actor comes into her own during the first climax of the story, when Suvorin invades her boudoir and begs her secret. Suvorin has by now insinuated himself into the Countess’ household by cold-heartedly wooing her vague, doe eyed ward Lizaveta Ivanova (Yvonne Mitchell). Lizaveta’s heart is awoken by a love letter copied by Suvorin from a book; won by his genuine but misinterpreted passion; and inevitably broken. In contrast to the naivety of her protege, the old dowager Ranevskaya is strangely measured in her reaction to the intruder Suvorin when he reveals himself in her boudoir. Even when weighed down with a blanket and tied into a ridiculous wispy bonnet, Edith Evans’ natural charisma and depth of character blow the imposing presence of the celebrated Walbrook off the screen. His impassioned Suvorin interprets the Countess’ aphasia as insolence, or at least reticence. However, the Dame Evans evinces so much more, without a word: cynical amusement at his foolishness, disdain for his greed, and hunger for the opportunity to delegate her curse.
The conceit of negative space used in the soundtrack – ambient noise becoming apparent only when it stops and an eerie silence prevails – was also used in two sections of its sister piece DEAD OF NIGHT. Miles Malleson, who plays the terrifyingly chirpy hearse driver in one of these sections, also appears in THE QUEEN OF SPADES as the accountant Tchybukin. The two films have been released together as a set, and quite rightly so – THE QUEEN OF SPADES would have fitted in well (albeit condensed from its feature length) as one of the short tales of the unexpected that make up the portmanteau Hallowe’en stalwart.
As we sink into the third act, the original tricks and trappings of true horror begin.
The most recent release of THE QUEEN OF SPADES features a brief but earnest introduction from Martin Scorsese, who marvels at Dickinson’s last-minute leap into the director’s saddle. He also celebrates the vitality of the sound direction, and the legendary cinematography of Otto Heller. Since beginning his career in the early twenties, Heller has to this day lent his extraordinary vision to classics such as Olivier’s RICHARD III, THE LADYKILLERS and PEEPING TOM, not to mention the Michael Caine vehicles of the 60s. The sound design is rich and many layered: servants’ bells, sleigh bells, echoing footsteps and manic laughter. Walbrook mumbles and grumbles, coos and cajoles, and finally roars, his arms rigid and outstretched with all the fury of a confounded baby.
What makes this film so creepy? The concept of the Uncanny was identified by Ernst Jentsch in his 1906 essay, “On the Psychology of the Uncanny”, as “doubts whether an apparently animate being is really alive; or conversely, whether a lifeless object might be, in fact, animate”. The obsidian eyes of the Countess, in life and death, are as lifeless and yet as animated as those of a Dam troll. As we sink into the third act, the original tricks and trappings of true horror, bowdlerised in modern day, begin. Wes Craven might well take heed of the way that the jump scare, the sting shock to which he and his contemporaries have now inured us, were used in the early days of horror. THE QUEEN OF SPADES is a solid, engaging tale of the uncanny which will appeal to anyone who enjoyed NIGHT OF THE DEMON or THE HAUNTING, or perhaps Francis Marion Crawford’s short story, THE UPPER BERTH.
And what is the lesson to be learned from this tale? Perhaps it is quite simple – whether you are selling your soul or simply using a POKE code in a video game, those who cheat must inevitably curse themselves with an emptiness of life.