Guest in the House

Martha Proctor believes something evil has come to her home. Her nephew Dr. Dan Proctor arrives with his betrothed, Evelyn Heath, who is a frail invalid. Evelyn is introduced to Aunt Martha as well as Dan's older brother, Douglas, an illustrator, along with Douglas's wife Ann and his model, Miriam.

The women sympathize with Evelyn, knowing of the hard life she has had. Evelyn has bouts of hysteria, involving her fear of birds, and also keeps a secret diary in which she mocks Aunt Martha for her spinsterhood status, scorns her fiancé Dan, and expresses a desire for Douglas instead.

While plotting to seduce Douglas, and accusing Dan of jealousy to make him leave, Evelyn sets out to rid the house of Miriam, whom she sees as a rival. Her gossip succeeds in getting back to Ann, and turning everyone's suspicions to Miriam, who departs.

Douglas then quarrels with Ann, driven apart by Evelyn's diabolical schemes. Ann and her child leave to catch the train. Evelyn destroys the goodbye note Ann has written to him.

Evelyn believes she has finally secured Douglas's love, but when Douglas realizes he's been manipulated, he runs to stop Ann. They return to the house and confront Evelyn, telling her that if she ends her marriage plans with Dan, they will agree to send her to an asylum for care. Instead, Evelyn fools Dan into returning home to marry her right away.

As Ann and Douglas take Dan aside to try to persuade him from marrying Evelyn, Martha plays on Evelyn's terror of birds, and pushes her into an hysteria. Evelyn flees from the house, screaming, and plunges to her death over a cliff.

The film earned a profit of $50,000.^[5][6]

Bosley Crowther, the film critic for The New York Times, gave the film a mixed review when it first opened, writing, "For a more cracked and incredible tale than this quaint one of a mischief-making female has not lately disturbed the screen. As a play by Hagar Wilde and Dale Eunson, it had a moderate run, we understand, but as a film it is openly in peril of being laughed into a quick decline. The fault is as much in the story as it is in the handling by all concerned, for the story is cheaply synthetic and about as logical as a crooner's song...Nor is any help rendered by Anne Baxter, who plays the wrecker with so much coyness that anyone, shy of a blind man, could see that she was up to tricks. And Ralph Bellamy is equally ridiculous as a middle-aged Byronic beau who tries to be boyish and amorous and also solemn and wise. Miss MacMahon remains in the background, which is a happy place for one in this film, while Ruth Warrick, Scott McKay and Jerome Cowan get entwined with the torturings up front. Mr. Stromberg is an eminent producer, but his grip certainly slipped on this job."^[7]

Nominations

• Academy Awards: Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture; Werner Janssen; 1945.

• List of American films of 1944

• Guest in the House at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
• Guest in the House at IMDb
• Guest in the House at AllMovie
• Guest in the House at the TCM Movie Database
• Review of film at Variety
• Guest in the House is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive