The Silent House (1929 film)

The Silent House (also released as The House of Silence)^[2] is a 1929 British silent mystery film, directed by Walter Forde and starring Mabel Poulton, Gibb McLaughlin and Arthur Pusey. It was made in 1928 at the Nettlefold Studios in Walton-on-Thames and trade-shown in January 1929.^[3] The film was written by H Fowler Mear, based on a hit stage play by John G Brandon and George Pickett, but it was not a success at the box-office.^[4] A print of the film exists at the National Film Archive in London.^[2]

Chan Fu, the Oriental character played by Gibb McLaughlin, resembles Sax Rohmer's then-popular Fu Manchu character.^[2] Jonathan Rigby, in his book Studies in Terror, points out that "The film contains an almost de rigueur tribute to The Cat and the Canary when a corpse pitches forward from its concealment in a fireplace, as well as betraying a submerged uneasiness about Britain's colonial past that was to resurface in several British horrors of a later period."^[5]