"Ladies in Retirement" by Charles Vidor (1941)

Sweet, old, retired chorus girl (Isobel Elsom) lives comfortably in her countryside house with a servant (Evelyn Keyes) and a housekeeper (Ida Lupino). She is elderly but still has a twinkle in her eye, loves to play her piano and is soft-hearted enough to accept when housekeeper ask for a favour to bring two older sisters from London for a short visit. Unknowing to her employee, housekeeper is under great stress and pressure because sisters are not exactly right in the head and they should by all means be institutionalised - when these visitors bring chaos and mayhem, the household transform itself into a complete nightmare.

Wow, this was completely different from what I expected - in fact, I can hardly remember another case when movie turned out to be so completely opposite from what I had in mind. I thought this will be some mellow, old-fashioned black comedy similar to 1944. "Arsenic and Old Lace" (not my favourite, by the way) but in fact this is not funny at all - if anything, "Ladies in Retirement" slowly grows so sinister and macabre that it eventually becomes a genuine psychological thriller. By definition, this could easily be called film noir except that its a period piece with a historical costumes and has much more in common with a "Gaslight" or "The Spiral Staircase" than any detective story with hard-boiled policemen and gun molls. Excellent cinematography and clever use of shadows makes everything very creepy, while acting is impeccable - initially I thought that sisters (Elsa Lanchester and Edith Barrett who looks like a twin of British actress Jane Horrocks) will be eccentric and funny but they are actually truly unhinged and no one would enjoy visitors like that. Behind their harmless smiles there is something disturbing, in fact all trough the movie I felt extremely uneasy as it slowly dawned on me that this is not funny at all. Louis Hayward (real-life husband of Lupino) plays the cunning, opportunistic cousin who weaves his web around women and even Keyes is perfectly acceptable as naive servant unable to resist his flirtations. Based on a successful stage play, it gives perfect chance to Lupino to shine as long-suffering woman sentenced to a life of servitude whose carefully controlled poise gradually cracks under pressure.