Humaira Grant
It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.
Arianna Moses
Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.
Taha Avalos
The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.
mark.waltz
Wealthy Raymond Lovell is the product of the second marriage of a wealthy man and his cook, unfortunately the half sibling of the vindictive survivors of his father's first marriage. When a mine cave-in in their Welsh community has them wanting to help the families of the survivors, they contact Lovell who decides (reluctantly) to come out with his secretary (Nova Philbeam) to investigate their claim and most likely turn them down. What he finds is the trio of bible spouting spinsters determined to get their hands on his money any way they can, even though he's made it clear he's bequesting the majority of it to the loyal Philbeam. Not getting what they want makes these already looney ladies all the more a little nutty in the Macadamia Manor they live in, and through schemes like poisoned wine, a falling grandfather clock and a road that isn't really a road, it appears that neither Philbeam or Lovell will live to see a return to their happy London office space.The three sisters are Nancy Price, Mary Clare and Mary Merrall, maybe unknown names and faces to American audiences, but very theatrical in nature, as if being played by Judith Anderson, Gale Sondergaard and Margaret Hamilton with the direction of Tod Browning. But that's not the case here. This is very British, and delightfully gothic style melodrama, set in a decaying house that makes both Wuthering Heights and Manderlay seem like Tara. The oldest sister reminds me of Mary Morris's vindictive spinster matriarch in the Broadway melodrama "Double Door", made into a 1934 movie where Morris had a large safe room ready to lock anybody in (alive, and with no air) whom she feel betrayed her. The others are supposedly deaf or blind, but equally capable of the nefarious actions of their older sisters. No cute elderberry wine makers are these old ladies, closer to the three witches from Shakespeare's "Scottish Play".Also present for the melodrama is a handsome doctor (Anthony Hulme) who appears to be manipulated by the sisters, their cold-hearted cook and her mentally deranged son who is first seen flinging a rock at the window of Lovell's car. The mood is straight out of Nathaniel Hawthorne or Edgar Allan Poe, and the suspense builds up right to a conclusion that may have you clapping after 90 minutes of hissing at these three descendants of the Stygian witches. Everybody is excellent, with Philbeam delightfully bold as she stands up to each of the sisters every time they either insult her, make an accusation, or roll their hands together as they spout a threat. Lovell makes it clear that as a businessman, he is very strong willed and domineering, but as the youngest brother of the three women, it is obvious that he fears them, and for good reason. Each of the sisters has their own personality, so it's not as if they were playing the same person. Quite outstanding in almost every way, this is a must see for fans of gothic melodrama and horror films where the monsters are quite human.
Richard Chatten
'The Three Weird Sisters' was the feature film debut of director Daniel Birt, adapted by Louise Birt and Dylan Thomas from the novel 'The Case of the Three Weird Sisters' (1943) by Charlotte Armstrong. A barnstorming piece of Grand Guignol set in South Wales which meets 'The Old Dark House' going one way and 'The Addams Family' the other; it was a typically bold offering from Louis H. Jackson's ill-fated British National Pictures, which went into receivership the same year this film was released.Madness runs in some families, in the Morgan-Vaughan's it practically gallops. The attitude to physical disability displayed here would be considered well beyond the pale today, with the three sisters described as "blind, deaf and warped". Nancy Price (who is here blind, and four years later played a wise deaf woman in 'Mandy'), Mary Clare and Mary Merrall are a blast as the unholy three; especially Clare as deaf Maude, who unnervingly is the only one who's always smiling. The rest of the cast all pitch in enthusiastically, the one outsider to the valleys being the lovely but agitated-looking Nova Pilbeam in one of her last films.When a name as celebrated as Thomas's is associated with a project it's always tempting to attribute all its qualities to him, but both the crazy mood and the ripe, fruity dialogue certainly seem to have his finger prints all over them. You won't forget this in a hurry...!
dbborroughs
When a mine collapses destroying the homes built on top of it, the three sisters of the the family that owned the mine promise to rebuild the homes. This doesn't sit well with their brother who now lives in the city and is the real source of money for the family. Returning home in order to straighten out the situation, he soon finds that all is not well in the old homestead, and his life is in grave danger.A post war-Gothic tale with a great deal on its mind this is a movie that never really works. Graced with a script that was written in part by Dylan Thomas the dialog is often very literate in a way that real people never talk. The writing does provide for some very wicked exchanges between the characters but it never really comes to life. Some of the miners are just a bit too poetic about the tragedy that has befallen their small town.Thematically the film is about the clash of the old and the stayed with the new and the modern. I mention this because the film seems much more interested in ideas than it is in any real action. We have the three sisters who never left home and want to rebuild things the way they were battling their brother and his secretary who have come from the outside and want live in the present and deal with the situation as it is. Its a battle that forms the basis, in one way or another, for almost every scene often to the detriment of the drama. Everything seems to be arranged to have some deep meaning from the aliments of the sisters to the crumbling nature of the manor house. I wasn't watching a movie so much as a dramatized argument for the modern; there aren't people on the screen rather they are ideas.I applaud the filmmakers for wanting to make a movie that is more than a Gothic drama, but they went the wrong way and forgot the drama. Honestly this is a tough movie to get through, its 80 minutes long and feels like twice that in the lecture hall. As good as the basic plot line is the execution makes this a film I doubt I'll ever watch again.Worth a shot if you don't mind seeing a literate drama that tries too hard and just misses being something special
thomandybish
This film, whose screenplay was written by poet Dylan Thomas, concerns a lawyer and his young secretary who travel to the Welsh ancestral home of their client to alter his will. Seems the man is the youngest child and only male heir of a once pround family who controlled the local coal mine. The home is presided over by the man's three older sisters, each with a distinctive affliction: one is blind, one is virtually deaf, the other has painful arthritis that has molded her hands into claws. A series of bizarre events begin to occur, particularly to the man and the lawyer's secretary, that ultimately ends in a cataclysmic finale!What we have here is an old set of standards giving way to a new mindset and, to quote the poet himself, the old ways(or sisters)"do not go gentle into that good night"! These three women drift phantom-like through their gloomy mansion, exhibiting the kind of arcane Victorian propriety and claustrophobic narrowness only an isolated life in a wealthy, rarefied setting can bring. Their brother left the house and community to go to school and work, so he doesn't share their outlook. His reappearance, along with that of the free-thinking secretary, challenges the women's way of thinking. The sense of decay shown by the three sisters is heightened by the fact that the mine which has supported them is almost exhausted and, in fact, threatens the town above it by dent of the fact that the tunnels and caverns are dangerously near to collapse. A great sense of gloom and gothic atmosphere prevades the interior shots in the house. Interesting.
