The Queen of Spades review – British gothic horror is a lurid smoulder of a film

Few actors could brood quite like Anton Walbrook, and indeed, that realisation was probably on the minds of the makers behind The Queen of Spades, an often overlooked British gothic horror from 1949, now given a very welcome and anti-Christmas-y reissue for the seasonal holidays.

Adapted from an Aleksandr Pushkin short story from 1834, it tells the story of an ethnic German in the Russian imperial army, Captain Herman (Walbrook), who hears about the aged Countess Ranevskaya (Edith Evans) and her supposedly Faustian pact with the devil to gain great fortune at card games. Fuelled by avarice, he begins courting the Countess’ maid Lizavetta Ivanova (Yvonne Mitchell) as a means of gaining access to the countess. Naturally, this all comes to a head in the final act, with lust and greed taking their toll on Herman.

Much of the film is a fairly slow-going affair: the scenes of political and romantic intrigue amongst Russian military elite are contrasted with gothic and expressionistic sequences in which Walbrook becomes increasingly unhinged. The former scenes are largely lifeless, with dull plot exposition and forgettable conversation between a bland supporting cast – though it’s a pleasure watching Edith Evans rip through these boring niceties with her rude, haughty behaviour. But it’s in the latter scenes in which The Queen of Spades truly shines: this is a lurid smoulder of a film, begging to be seen in full clarity.

The Queen of Spades’ director, Thorold Dickinson, has long stood as an underappreciated gem of the often unheralded British film industry in the mid 20th-century. His most well-known contribution to cinema was the original version of 1940 film Gaslight, also starring Walbrook, unwittingly giving birth to a new way of describing gendered psychological abuse in the 21st century, but he put together a solid body of work that deserves rediscovery, this film included.

Indeed one could argue that Walbrook again gaslights his would-be romantic partner here, but both films share a deep kinship beyond the superficial: both employ cinematic strategies that attempt to deeply embed us into the burgeoning psychosis of the main protagonist. Here, a wintry 19th century St. Petersburg becomes a land of shadows, frosted window panes obscuring the world beyond and dark figures shifting through the snow. At times, Dickinson will frame two characters close-up in the screen, but place the light source such that the shadows on their faces are cast in different directions, fragmenting the space – and throughout, one senses the deep imprinted influence of German Expressionism that emerged in the decades prior.

At the centre of it all, Anton Walbrook, one of the more gloriously devilish European leading men of the mid 20th-century. The camera casts shadows on his face that don’t seem physically possible, and his performance – all hollowed-out eyes, wild gazes, and perpetual edginess – ties the film’s beautiful craftsmanship together. The Queen of Spades is at its best when wallowing in the gothic mist of its central star and his maddening, greedy obsession, so much so that it overcomes even its drearier flaws with some confidence.

The Queen of Spades is re-released in UK cinemas on 23 December.