The Spiral Staircase

Later celebrated as a key early precursor to the modern slasher film genre, Siodmak’s fifth noir for Universal was adapted by first-time screenwriter Mel Dinelli from a novel by Ethel Lina White, author of the source material for Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes). Dorothy McGuire gives a precisely calibrated, near-wordless turn as proto–final girl Helen, a mute orphan who, while working as a housemaid for the affluent Warren family in turn-of-the-century Vermont, finds herself in the crosshairs of a serial killer targeting local women with physical or mental disabilities. Lensed by Val Lewton cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca—whose mastery of richly atmospheric noir aesthetics dovetailed with Siodmak’s own affinity for the German Expressionist influences that informed his UFA filmmaking education—the film makes use of starkly textured chiaroscuro compositions to heighten the effect of a vividly cinematic narrative that draws heavily on the Gothic horror tradition. 35mm print courtesy of the UCLA Film & Television Archive.