On this day in movie history - The Spiral Staircase (1946 movie & novel):

The Spiral Staircase

directed by Robert Siodmak,

written by Mel Dinelli,

based on the novel Some Must Watch by Ethel Lina White,

was released in the United States on February 20, 1946.

Music by Roy Webb.

Cast:

Dorothy McGuire, George Brent, Ethel Barrymore, Kent Smith, Rhonda Fleming, Gordon Oliver, Elsa Lanchester, Sara Allgood, Rhys Williams, James Bell, Erville Alderson, Ellen Corby, Myrna Dell, George Holmes, Stanley Price, Robert Siodmak, Richard Tyler, Charles Wagenheim, Larry Wheat.

Recommended reading:

Some Must Watch

By Ethel Lina White.

Filmed as The Spiral Staircase (1946), directed by Robert Siodmak.

Paperback.

Published by Hinkler Books.

First published 1933.

ISBN 13: 9781743081167

ISBN10: 1743081162

ASIN: 1743081162

Description:

Film director Robert Siodmak took Some Must Watch as the inspiration for his classic, bone-chilling thriller, The Spiral Staircase. In this novel Helen Capel takes the position of lady-help in a remote country house owned by the Warren family. She learns that a murderer is on the loose. All four of his victims were young girls, and the last of these was strangled in a lonely house just five miles away. Helen feels safe inside the house, protected, but the maniac is closer than she fears.