Alicia I love this movie so much

Clevercell Very disappointing...

VividSimon Simply Perfect

Matylda Swan It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

lindaalou Accidentally ran across this--awesome, with Aline MacMahon so good and gracious and Basil Rathbone at his skin-crawling best. I enjoyed the evil personalities of the confederates, too. No one seemed ready to help this lady but her courage won the day. This story takes place all inside the lady's house, outdoor scenes only by reference, so it did come across rather like a play than a movie.Rather dated, of course, but a great little thriller to root for the "good guys". And, of course, I enjoyed the costumes and room decorations. I recognized "Mr Wiggs" at the very end. All the players were very convincing.

utgard14 Rich old maid Mary (Aline MacMahon) is a soft touch for beggars. On Christmas Eve, she invites one (Basil Rathbone) into her home and gives him some food. He leave but returns later with his wife and baby, tricking Mary into letting them stay. Soon he's invited more people to stay at Mary's home. Before she can have them thrown out, they've taken her prisoner.Intriguing premise for a movie made in the '30s. It's hard to dislike anything with a cast that includes Aline MacMahon, Basil Rathbone, and Dudley Digges. It's even got Frank "Hee Haw" Albertson in it. So it's a good cast with a good story. Still, it feels a little flat. It's not a particularly gritty or suspenseful movie. Had it been made at Warner Bros around that time I imagine it would have had a little more edge to it. More than watchable, though. This was remade in 1951 but I haven't seen that one yet.

ctomvelu1 What an odd little movie from the Golden Age of Hollywood. Plot-rich but very stagey, almost as if it might have originally been a play, KIND LADY tells the story of a wealthy woman (McMahon) who takes in a starving artist (Rathbone) and his wife and daughter. Soon enough,she finds the artist is no artist, but a grifter with an extended family of grifters who soon move in on her. What they are after is her extensive collection of paintings, which are worth a fortune. The bogus artist and his crew hold the old lady captive, and only an 11th-hour intervention by a suspicious relative saves the day. A young Rathbone is suitably sinister and suave as the head of this pack of thieves and cutthroats, and McMahon is thoroughly convincing as the wealthy old woman who is much too generous. The marvelous character actor Dudley Digges plays Rathbone's main confederate. There is a doctor among this group of thugs, but it is never explained why he is part of the group. A little back story couldn't have hurt, like maybe he was peddling drugs and lost his license to practice medicine. Also, Rathbone is so elegant, one has to wonder why he has thrown in with this mostly ragtag lot, other than to assume these are the best people he could find to aid and abet him with his scam. Or perhaps he just acts and looks elegant, and is as sleazy as the rest of the crew when not working one of his deals. Who knows? A real curio with a top-notch cast, perfect for lovers of creaky old melodramas..

Arthur Hausner An excellent thriller in which an artist tries to take over a woman's life to get the fabulous 10 paintings she owns, worth a fortune. Surprisingly, five years ago I saw the 1951 remake with Ethel Barrymore and Maurice Evans in the leads, but that in no way diminished my enjoyment of this film, despite my knowing the ending. I found Aline MacMahon a bit too young for the title role in this film, but I relished Basil Rathbone as the evil artist. He's such a convincing villain. Dudley Digges and Eily Malyon are also excellent as Rathbone's accomplices, although I wondered how such a cultured man as Rathbone got involved with these lowlifes. And why is Murray Kinnell, as the doctor also in cahoots with Rathbone, involved in such a nasty undertaking? He's a real doctor, as we find out after he murders the maid he catches trying to call the police; he fills out a death certificate. Doris Lloyd, playing a friend of MacMahon in this film played the maid, Rose, in the remake. The critics liked the remake better, but I felt both films are on par with each other. See both films and you decide.