Old Hollywood
Cinema
1900-1979
Nostalgia is a seductive liar - George Wildman Ball
Burt Lancaster walks into a world of trouble in The Killers (1946, dir. Robert Siodmak, co-starring Ava Gardner)

Burt Lancaster walks into a world of trouble in The Killers (1946, dir. Robert Siodmak, co-starring Ava Gardner)

“You touch me and you won’t live ‘till morning.” -Ava Gardner in The Killers (1946, dir. Robert Siodmak) Photo by Ray Jones.

“You touch me and you won’t live ‘till morning.”

-Ava Gardner in The Killers (1946, dir. Robert Siodmak) Photo by Ray Jones.

The Spiral Staircase (1945, dir. Robert Siodmak, adapted from Ethel Lina White’s The Spiral Staircase) (via) “This sort of lunatic is usually normal in between his fits of mania. He might be living in this house with you, and you’d accept him.”  Helen shuddered.  “Are you trying to tell me someone in this house committed all the murders?” “That is the paralysing part of it,” insisted the doctor. “Just imagine the horror of seeing a friendly, familiar face—like my own—suddenly change into an unfamiliar mask—with murder glaring out of its eyes?” -Ethel Lina White, The Spiral Staircase (1933) 

The Spiral Staircase (1945, dir. Robert Siodmak, adapted from Ethel Lina White’s The Spiral Staircase) (via)

“This sort of lunatic is usually normal in between his fits of mania. He might be living in this house with you, and you’d accept him.” 

Helen shuddered. 

“Are you trying to tell me someone in this house committed all the murders?”

“That is the paralysing part of it,” insisted the doctor. “Just imagine the horror of seeing a friendly, familiar face—like my own—suddenly change into an unfamiliar mask—with murder glaring out of its eyes?”

-Ethel Lina White, The Spiral Staircase (1933) 

Dorothy McGuire in The Spiral Staircase (1945, dir. Robert Siodmak) “The wind shrieked, as though a flock of witches sailed overhead, racing the moon, which spun through the torn clouds like a silver cannonball, shot into space. Down in the basement, a flickering candle in her hand, she groped amid the mice, the spiders, and the shadows. These shadows shifted before her, sliding along the pale-washed wall, as though to lead the way. Whenever she entered an office, they crouched on the other side of the door, waiting for her. She was nerved up to meet an attack which did not come, but which lurked just around the corner. It was perpetual postponement, which drew her on, deeper and deeper, into the labyrinth.” -Ethel Lina White, The Spiral Staircase (1933) (via)

Dorothy McGuire in The Spiral Staircase (1945, dir. Robert Siodmak)

“The wind shrieked, as though a flock of witches sailed overhead, racing the moon, which spun through the torn clouds like a silver cannonball, shot into space. Down in the basement, a flickering candle in her hand, she groped amid the mice, the spiders, and the shadows.

These shadows shifted before her, sliding along the pale-washed wall, as though to lead the way. Whenever she entered an office, they crouched on the other side of the door, waiting for her. She was nerved up to meet an attack which did not come, but which lurked just around the corner.

It was perpetual postponement, which drew her on, deeper and deeper, into the labyrinth.”

-Ethel Lina White, The Spiral Staircase (1933)

(via)