Boris Karloff lurking around menacingly as the sinister butler Morgan is the nominal star despite having no lines but Charles Laughton rather steals the show as one of the guests, a bombastic, self-made Lancastrian Sir William Porterhouse who gradually becomes a sympathetic character. Eva Moore as the near-deaf, puritanical, killjoy sister Rebecca comes a close second with her great comic timing.
The inuendo-laden script is a joy but the film doesn't quite sustain interest to the end with a rather tame climax, of which there are too many survivors , spoof or not.
Gloria Stuart ( as Margaret Waverton )
Sex : Margaret strips to her underwear while being lectured on sin by Rebecca then puts on a white dress which hugs her tremendous figure for the rest of the film.
Death : Survives
Gloria was born in Chicago in 1910 and this was one of her first films. She became a big name in the thirties but in 1945 abandoned Hollywood to become an artist. She didn't return to acting until the mid-seventies mainly in TV. There was a glorious coda to her career when she played the aged Rose in Titanic for which she received an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress. At 87 she was the oldest person ever to be nominated for an acting award. In 2004 she was diagnosed with lung cancer and undertook chemotherapy despite her advanced age. She finally succumbed in 2010 aged 100.
Lillian Bond ( as Gladys Ducane )
Sex : Gladys is ostensibly Porterhouse's mistress but later confides that they are not actually having conjugal relations.
Death : Survives
Lillian was a 24 year old Londoner who emigrated in the late twenties. She never achieved massive fame but kept a career going down to the fifties when she was working mostly in TV. She retired from acting on turning 50 in 1958 and died in 1991 aged 83.
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