Image of the Night

[randy_byers]

The director of photography for The Spiral Staircase (1946) was Nicholas Musuraca, who was one of the great noir stylists and also shot a number of the Val Lewton horror thrillers at RKO. The Spiral Staircase feels like a Lewton movie in many ways, or maybe it's just the RKO team feeling, with music by Roy Webb and art direction by Albert D'Agostino as well. Women-in-peril gothics are a variation on the old dark house genre, so you've got to go down into the dark basement with nothing but a quavering candle. The lion's head in the background ties in with the predilections of one of the major characters, but it's also a great bit of weird symbolism. Above all, I love this shot for the way the lighting turns Rhonda Fleming's face into a mask.