Man in the Attic

Jack Palance is "Slade", a curiously enigmatic stranger who takes rooms in the home of the "Harley" family. It's at the height of the paranoia in Victorian London surrounding the "Jack the Ripper" killings and as our story develops, both "Mrs. Harley" (Frances Bavier) and the audience begin to suspect that our reclusive visitor may well have a secret to keep. Those suspicions only intensify when he takes a shine to her actress niece "Lily" (Constance Smith) and we really do wonder if she is soon to be toast, too! Hugo Fregonese does manage to build a little menace into this: the dark eerie settings, the foggy London scenes all add a richness to the drama. Palance, however, is as wooden as a picket fence; he brings very little to his part. Indeed, aside from an amiable few scenes from Rhys Williams as "Harley", the acting is all a bit dry and stagey and that drags the whole thing down rather. It is still quite watchable, though, but with a better actor in the lead it could have been much more intriguing and I think I preferred "The Lodger" (1944).