Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Bookmark this pageUncle Silas (1947)
Director: Charles Frank
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
It was a rum idea, hiring the author of all those trouser-dropping Whitehall farces to adapt Sheridan Le Fanu's 1864 gothic thriller. The opening shot of a girl's hand brushing aside a cobweb and plucking some berries symbolically encapsulates what's to come, and several other moments in this wildly inconsistent movie suggest that Travers, or someone, was still rooted in the silent era. Its most relishable aspects are the lavishly designed, atmospherically shot interiors, Travers' ear for the comic possibilities of stilted conversation, the naturalness of Jean Simmons as the much-menaced teenage heiress and, for some tastes, Paxinou's fruity performance as a batty governess, swigging her claret straight from the bottle. Lacking a strong director, though, the material never coheres, while Rawsthorne's score and de Marney's lacklustre villain are major liabilities.Author: BBa
Cast & crew
Director: Charles Frank
Producer: Josef Somlo, Laurence Irving
Cast: Jean Simmons, Katina Paxinou, Derrick de Marney, Derek Bond, Esmond Knight, Guy Rolfe full cast
Genre(s): Thrillers
Duration: 103 mins
Most popular on this site
Top Stories
Time Out's 101 Films of the Decade
Ten years, thousands of movies and millions of dollars in international box office, and it all boils down to this
Jim Jarmusch on 'The Limits of Control'
Jim Jarmusch has followed ‘Broken Flowers’ with an esoteric crime mystery. Dave Calhoun speaks to him from his New York office
Richard Linklater on 'Me and Orson Welles'
Dave Calhoun meets the 49-year-old, Houston-born filmmaker Richard Linklater to discuss his new comedy
Our verdict on Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones
Peter Jackson ends a triumphant decade with a sentimental misfire with this lush Alice Sebold adaptation
On the set of Ken Loach's 'Route Irish'
Dave Calhoun meets Ken Loach on the set of his forthcoming Iraq war movie
Is 'Paranormal Activity' the new 'Blair Witch'?
How does a film go from DIY experiment to box-office smash? 'Paranormal Activity' director Oren Peli explains
A gateway to all things 'New Moon'
In anticipation of 'The Twilight Saga: New Moon', Time Out is offering the chance to pick up a limited edition pack with three exclusive magazines and a free poster.
The films that deserve a TV spin-off
With Roland Emmerich suggesting he'd like to make a '2012' TV spin-off, we propose some more movie-to-TV serialisations
Time Out's 50 greatest animated films with commentary by Terry Gilliam
In celebration of the release of Pixar's 'Up' and Wes Anderson's 'Fantastic Mr Fox', read our rundown of fifty classic feature length animations
What do you think?
Post your review now