Edward G. Robinson in "The Red House" (1947) - feat. Rory Calhoun & Julie London

Описание: Handicapped farmer Pete Morgan (Edward G. Robinson) lives on an isolated rural property with his stern sister Ellen (Judith Anderson) and their adopted teenage daughter Meg (Allene Roberts). Viewed as strange by the nearby town, the family keeps largely to itself. At Meg’s urging, Pete hires her high-school classmate Nath Storm (Lon McCallister) to help with farm work. From the start, Pete warns Nath never to enter the surrounding woods, claiming they are dangerous and contain a mysterious red house.

One night Nath ignores the warning, ventures into the woods, and is struck from behind and knocked into a stream. He suspects Pete attacked him, but Meg and Ellen insist Pete was with them at the time. Intrigued, Nath and Meg secretly search the woods on Sundays for the red house. During this time Meg falls in love with Nath, while his jealous girlfriend Tibby (Julie London) grows increasingly manipulative. Pete secretly allows local thug Teller (Rory Calhoun) to hunt on the land in exchange for keeping trespassers away.

When Nath is detained by Tibby one Sunday, Meg goes alone into the woods and finds the red house. Teller fires at her to scare her off, causing her to fall and break her leg. Nath rescues her, but Pete angrily fires Nath and forbids him from seeing Meg again. Nath returns to town, works at his mother’s store, and later at Tibby’s family farm, where he discovers Tibby’s vanity and her affair with Teller.

Pete and Ellen reveal fragments of the past: years earlier they rented the red house to a married couple. Pete was obsessively in love with the wife, Jeannie. When she tried to leave with her husband and young daughter, Pete confronted her, accidentally suffocated her, then murdered her husband. The bodies were buried near the red house, and Pete and Ellen adopted the orphaned child—Meg.

Ellen, determined to destroy the red house and its hold over Pete, sets out to burn it but is mistakenly shot and killed by Teller. After Teller is arrested, Meg demands the truth. As Nath pursues Teller with Pete’s rifle, Meg convinces Pete to follow. At the red house, Pete becomes delusional, mistaking Meg for Jeannie and nearly killing her before Nath and the sheriff intervene. Pete flees and deliberately crashes his truck into the ice house, drowning himself.

Days later, Nath burns the red house at last. He and Meg look toward a future freed from the past’s long shadow.

A 1947 American Black & White psychological horror film written & directed by Delmer Daves, produced by Sol Lesser, based on the 1945 novel of the same name by George Agnew Chamberlain, cinematography Bert Glennon, starring Edward G. Robinson, Lon McCallister, Judith Anderson, Rory Calhoun, Julie London, Harry Shannon, Arthur Space, and Walter Sande. Screen debut appearance of Allene Roberts. Final screen appearance of Ona Munson. Released by United Artists.

Rory Calhoun's second credited film role after "The Great John L." (1945)

Shot on location in the Sierra Nevada in and around Sonora, California. Filming locations included the Kenny Dairy near Murphys, the Bowlsby apple ranch in Tuolumne City., and abandoned gold mines in the historic mining community of Columbia.

Adapted by Daves and an uncredited Albert Maltz from the 1945 novel of the same name by George Agnew Chamberlain. The novel had been popularly serialized in The Saturday Evening Post.

Composer Miklós Rózsa continued his exploration of writing mysterious cues for the theremin, which was played by Samuel Hoffman. The score features stylistic similarities to Rózsa's scores for "Spellbound" (1945) and "The Lost Weekend" (1945), which also prominently utilized the theremin.

First movie by Thalia Productions, owned by Edward G. Robinson and producer Sol Lesser. This was to be the first of a series of films. Lesser wanted to get away from producing Tarzan movies for RKO. Unfortunately, Robinson got in trouble with the House Un-American Activities Committee due to allegations he donated money to socialists in the 1930s. So this was their only film. Lesser went back to making Tarzan movies.

The film is highlighted in the first segment of Martin Scorsese's documentary "A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies" (1995).

The New York Times, A. H. Weiler enjoyed the picture, calling it "an edifying offering, which should supply horror-hungry audiences with the chills of the month ... told intelligently and with mounting tension". Weiler also praised "Delmar Daves' fluid direction ... and an appropriately macabre musical assist from Miklós Rózsa.

In 2019, Paste magazine declared this the best horror film released in 1947. Writer and film historian Edmund Bansak favorably described the film as "one of the more avant-garde horror films of the decade ... continually glossed over in surveys of the genre, probably because it so defies pigeon-holing as a horror film." Bansak adds that the film's pastoral setting conveys "the flavor of [rural American] folklore