The Silent House (also released as The House of Silence) is a 1929 British silent mystery film, directed by Walter Forde and starring Mabel Poulton, Gibb McLaughlin and Arthur Pusey. It was made in 1928 at the Nettlefold Studios in Walton-on-Thames and trade-shown in January 1929.Rigby p.29 The film was written by H Fowler Mear, based on a hit stage play by John G Brandon and George Pickett, but it was not a success at the box-office.Low p.175 A print of the film exists at the National Film Archive in London.
Chan Fu, the Oriental character played by Gibb McLaughlin, resembles Sax Rohmer's then-popular Fu Manchu character. Jonathan Rigby, in his book Studies in Terror, points out that "The film contains an almost de rigueur tribute to The Cat and the Canary when a corpse pitches forward from its concealment in a fireplace, as well as betraying a submerged uneasiness about Britain's colonial past that was to resurface in several British horrors of a later period."Rigby p.29
Plot The film takes place in an 'old dark house' sporting hidden panels, clutching hands, a snake pit and a secret panel leading to a room used to conceal dead bodies. A Chinese mandarin named Chan Fu (Gibb McLaughlin) uses his Svengali-like powers to hypnotise a woman into revealing the hiding place of a cache of expensive bonds.
Cast Mabel Poulton as T'Mala Gibb McLaughlin as Chan Fu Arthur Pusey as George Winsford Gerald Rawlinson as Captain Barty Albert Brouett as Peroda Rex Maurice as Legarde Raston Medrora as Mateo Frank Perfitt as Richard Winsford Arthur Stratton as Benson Kiyoshi Takase as Ho-Fang
References
Bibliography Low, Rachel. The History of British Film: Volume IV, 1918–1929. Routledge, 1997. Wood, Linda. British Films, 1927-1939. British Film Institute, 1986. Rigby, Jonathan. Studies in Terror: Landmarks of Horror Cinema. Signum Books, 2011.
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