Tripwire Reviews British Classic Supernatural Film The Queen Of Spades

Playing His Cards Close To His Chest

Tripwire’s editor-in-chief takes a look at StudioCanal’s 4K restoration of Thorold Dickinson’s British classic The Queen of Spades, on Blu-Ray from 23 January…

The Queen Of Spades
Director: Thorold Dickinson
Stars: Anton Walbrook, Dame Edith Evans, Yvonne Mitchell

The Queen Of Spades is a British-made supernatural film based on the short story by Alexander Pushkin released in 1949 and here it makes its Blu-ray debut in a 4K restoration.

In Napoleonic-era Russia, Anton Walbrook plays army officer Herman Suvorin, who becomes obsessed with playing cards, specifically the little-know game of Faro and how to win at this game. When he gets wind that elderly Countess Ranevskaya discovered this secret many years ago, albeit at the cost of her mortal soul, he goes about wooing her young ward Lizaveta (played in her debut by Yvonne Mitchell) as a pretext to get to the Countess. The officer comes from a lower class than his fellow army officers and so he doesn’t quite fit into their world. He sees the wealth he can acquire through getting the secret from the Countess as a way of bringing himself up to their level in society. 

Dickinson worked with Walbrook previously in 1940’s Gaslight and The Queen of Spades was also the screen debut of Dame Edith Evans, who was a much-acclaimed theatrical actress. He also collaborated with cinematographer Otto Heller, who worked on other British seminal classics The Ladykillers and Peeping Tom, to create the wonderfully eerie mood and unique atmosphere here. Walbrook is magnificent as the driven army officer, looking for money and power and even prepared to sacrifice everything he has just to obtain it. His relationship with Lizaveta lacks any warmth or emotional connection and he pursues her merely as a conduit to her ancient guardian. Mitchell has a warm on-screen persona and, as the only really sympathetic character here, offers a small kernel of hope to the viewer. Evans brings real gravitas and heft to her role here too as a figure who appears to be literally haunted by her past.

The supernatural scenes where we are shown the final fate of the souls who make their diabolical deal with the devil are very effective indeed considering the age of this film.

The restoration really adds extra impact to the film here with its shadows and light really brought to sumptuous life on the small screen. Heller brings the demi monde that Suvorin and his army colleagues inhabit to life with aplomb and genuine panache and scenes like the ones featuring the gypsies that open and close it are mesmeric. Its production design is grand and ambitious where it needs to be, which is all the more impressive considering that it was shot at Welwyn studios in England rather than on location. The production can also be very intimate and personal when that is required of it as well. It is also interesting to consider that such a lavish film was made while England was still coming out of post-war austerity which may have been one of the reasons why the film was made.

The Queen Of Spades is a genuinely unsettling, haunting, beautiful and inventive British supernatural film, with director Martin Scorsese, who even offers a short introduction here, as one of its devoted aficionados. The interview conducted with Dickinson from 1979 from a film programme, included as one of the extras here, offers more context and background for those watching the film. It is an important film that has become better known over the past few years and hopefully this new release, which included a short cinema run back in December, will attract increased interest in it. It’s well worth picking up for fans of cinema history and British cinema history too.

JOEL MEADOWS