The House of the Seven Gables

This movie was made with a modest budget and was never intended as an "A-movie", though it had a bit higher production values and was a bit too long to be a true "B-movie" (i.e., the second and much cheaper film in a double-feature). With these modest expectations as well as some great but underrated actors, this film really delivers. You see, this film starred second-tier actors such as Vincent Price was a practically unknown and inexperienced actor as well as George Sanders who had been a supporting actor or B-movie leading man. Margaret Lindsay was probably the biggest name star in the film, though her career had seen better days in the 1930s. As a result of this and a very modest budget, none of the Universal Studios execs at the time suspected this would be one of their best films of the year. In fact, dollar-for-dollar, this film is one of the best films I have seen. Sure, it isn't GONE WITH THE WIND or THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, but these films had very large budgets and the best writers/directors/producers and of course they had to be great films.

Sanders and Price play brothers--Sanders is the money-grubbing amoral one and Price is the basically decent man who is framed by Sanders for murder. The plot is pretty complex and I don't want to spoil the suspense by explaining it further, but trust me the plot is exceptional--especially when it comes to irony. The ending is just terrific and drips with poetic justice.