Image of the Day

'I'm never more witty than when I've had a little nip. I see better, I hear better, and I feel much better.'

-- Elsa Lanchester as Mrs. Oates in The Spiral Staircase (1946). I've got a thing for Elsa. She is mostly comic relief in this film, and she's perfect in that niche, wearing big clothes to make her seem plumper, a kindly clown. The beautiful girls are murdered in the dark, but Mrs. Oates just gets drunk on stolen brandy and passes out by the kitchen fire. There's also a strange scene where the mute girl gives out a strangled cry that sounds remarkably like Elsa's iconic screech as the Bride of Frankenstein.