It was Leo Tolstoy who famously wrote “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its way”, and if you looked at the Quincy family, an affluent clan that has lived in the idyllic New England hamlet of Corinth for centuries, you’ll find very few families quite as miserable. Having lost all their money to the Great Depression, these three siblings have been forced to either work or pretend to be chronically ill to maintain a lifestyle that consists of luxuriating around their beautiful but deteriorating home – this is until the main breadwinner of the family, who is lovingly known as “Uncle Harry” to friends and family alike, brings an outsider into the fold, a glamorous and loving young woman with whom he forms a quick relationship, his sisters prove to have wildly different opinions on their brother’s conquests, leading to a new burst of tension between them that could have deadly consequences. When it was conceived, one has to wonder whether Robert Siodmak intended The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry to be quite as bleak and disturbing as it was. Working with screenwriters Stephen Longstreet and Keith Winter, hired to adapt the play of the same title by Thomas Job, it’s easy to imagine the temptation to explore even deeper into the sordid lives of this perverse, spoiled family was even stronger. The story, which touches on many very dark themes, but through engaging with the material in creative ways, is one of the more bleak you are likely to encounter from this period, looking at issues such as dysfunctional families, infidelity and the long-lasting impact of the Great Depression, which this film seems intent on showing didn’t only put the poorest of the poor at a disadvantage, but even had an effect on the elite class, albeit in a far less significant way. The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry is a peculiar film that is rich in both narrative and visual creativity. While it may seem slight at the outset, there’s a depth that Siodmak explores that makes it a worthwhile endeavour, and one of the more actively surprising films produced during the period.

While it may be relatively tame by modern standards, The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry is unmistakably one of the darkest dramas of the 1940s, at least in terms of the specific subjects it explores. This is a film that has its entire third act centre around the main character intending to kill one of his sisters for supposedly driving away the love of his life, only for his other sister to die due to a mistake, leading to an innocent person being given the death sentence – and it does this in such a matter-of-fact, straightforward way, it almost becomes bewildering to imagine that something so dark could take on such a simply tone. There is virtue in provocation, which only started to manifest two decades later, meaning that this film in particular was ahead of its time, at least in terms of the issues it explored. Moreover, it didn’t even have the benefit of films like Arsenic and Old Lace or Kind Hearts and Coronets, which also look at cold-blooded murder, but through the lens of dark comedy. There are so many small spatterings of situational humour spread throughout this film, but it is by no means a funny film, and it doesn’t possess that outwardly absurd sense of humour that many used to get around the issue of looking at darker subjects. There is a boundary to what Siodmak is doing here, and he makes sure never to cross it, or else risk potentially alienating audiences that weren’t prepared for such bleak subject matter – but when your film starts with a statement about how this family lost all their money in the Great Depression and ends with an innocent person essentially being led to the gallows after resigning to their fate, it’s clear that the intention was to cause a stir, which by all accounts it did, gaining a small amount of notoriety amongst a community that was not quite ready to embrace these more bleak scenarios, but which would set a foundation for slightly darker works shortly, those that didn’t need to justify their creative choices and could just exist as critical examinations of society and the human condition as a whole.

However, while designing a film with the express intention of provoking some form of a reaction is never a bad technique, this material must be handled by a filmmaker who understands that there is a limit and can creatively direct around some darker issues, which is especially important in an era driven by censorship (to the point where the entire resolution of this film was tacked on to appease the Motion Picture Production Code, who believed that every crime deserved appropriate punishment), and which can be effectively crafted into a film this memorable. Context is important, and considering The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry touches on themes relating to both the Great Depression and the Second World War, it’s surprising that the ultimate message of the film was a rallying manifesto against familial principles, especially since this was an era in which the media was trying to convey the message that unity between families and broader communities was imperative. This film is deeply critical of these overly saccharine, sentimental ideas that may be heartwarming but aren’t always applicable. It takes its time to develop on certain points – it may be a relatively short film, but it still pads itself with a few well-placed diversions that offer us a very different perspective, but one that is still very much valuable. Siodmak was a remarkably versatile director, and one who managed to balance strong stories with very actor-friendly direction, which allowed him to work on several very impressive productions that were not always perfect, but at least had interesting ideas embedded at their core. The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry is a film that is continuously trying to draw us in, giving us invaluable insights into the psychological state of a few very convincing characters, and telling a story that is both perverse and enthralling in equal measure, which immediately qualifies this as quite a progressive, thought-provoking drama.

Much of the appeal of The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry comes in this very precise and intriguing characterization, which arrives in the form of the brilliant actors cast to bring these characters to life. George Sanders was steadily ascending to becoming one of our most reliable actors – he was dignified enough to play these patrician archetypes but didn’t have the uptight persona of some of his contemporaries like Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson, who were at the point in their careers where they were taking themselves far too seriously. Sanders managed to be both debonair and pedestrian at the same time, the kind of elegant everyman that one could aspire to be since it felt like he was rooted in reality, but just slightly off-kilter, giving him a distinct aura of elegance. Few films prove this better than The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry, in which Sanders gives a spirited performance that feels more lived-in and complex than nearly anything else he was doing at the time. The character of Harry Quincy is one that needed an actor who could carefully traverse that narrow boundary between villainy and sympathy – he’s the kind of protagonist who we are never sure if we are supposed to trust or despise, and Sanders utilizes all of his skills to create such a vibrant, interesting character. He is accompanied on this journey by Geraldine Fitzgerald, who is an exceptional antagonist, and the deeply empathetic Moyna Macgill (whose own daughter, the wonderful Angela Lansbury, was already making a name for herself in the industry, and would go on to appear alongside Sanders in The Private Affairs of Bel Ami two years later), who may be the comedic relief, but who turns in a very heartfelt performance that almost betrays the jagged tone of the film. The trio make for a formidable set of leads, convincingly playing these bickering siblings in a way that is revealing and very compelling, each one developing their character to be reflective of some deep and interesting qualities, which is vital to the overall experience incited by this film.

The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry is not the easiest film to embrace, and it can sometimes feel like it is far too prickly and uneven to make much of an impression outside of a few strong ideas that feel ahead of its time. However, it is clear that the film that we received at the end of what appears to have been quite a peculiar journey from stage to screen is quite intriguing – a darkly comical social satire with broad overtures of psychological thriller and romance, all condensed into a rapid-fire 80-minute noir that never overstays its welcome for even a moment – it’s the kind of film that makes us understand the nostalgia for the Golden Age of Hollywood, since not only were the films entertaining and truly captivating but they were also delivered with such forthright dedication to a particular premise. It’s a film that tests the waters of decency – it never loses that feeling of sophistication that drives it, and it frequently asks us to look deeper than the surface to understand its broader ideas. Yet, there is something so deeply captivating about a film that understands the human condition in a way that is creative and meaningful, even if it needs to go about examining it with a slightly more bleak sensibility. This is a film that fights against abstraction, refusing to surrender to the sense of absurdity that we find creeping in at unexpected moments, and instead works hard to maintain a tone of serious, forthright storytelling that may not be the easiest to embrace, but at least has enough merit on its terms to be worth our time. The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry maintains its place as one of the more unique psychological thrillers from the era in which they were starting to take shape and become a legitimate genre in their own right.