The Red House is a spooky oddity from the time when film noir was still to be identified as a genre and yet was already bleeding into other genres. 1947 was also the year of Raoul Walsh’s western-noir Pursued and Carol Reed’s drama-noir Odd Man Out. In the rural backwoods, country farmer Edward G. Robinson harbors a dark family secret, one that seems to relate to a mysterious presence brooding in the surrounding forest. A deceptively simple plot involving unrequited love and disputes over land ownership masks deeper themes apparently derived from Hawthorne and Poe. The supernatural seems to glisten around the edges of the plot without ever really manifesting itself, as the characters’ issues are ultimately psychological. Co-stars the great Dame Judith Anderson.
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