The Uninvited is a 1944 American supernatural horror film that was directed by Lewis Allen and stars Ray Milland, Ruth Hussey, and Donald Crisp. The film is based on Dorothy Macardle's novel Uneasy Freehold (1941), which was published in the United States as The Uninvited (1942) and deals with a brother and sister who purchase a house in Cornwall, England, that is plagued by paranormal events. The film is part of a cycle of supernatural-themed films that began appearing in the mid-1940s. Dodie Smith began writing the film, and Frank Partos was brought in by his friend, associate producer Charles Brackett. Brackett wanted to have the film directed by Alfred Hitchcock but could not organize plans with him, so Allen directed it. Filming began on April 16, 1943; Allen found working with Gail Russell, who was inexperienced and began crying several times, to be the most difficult part of filming.

Plot

In 1937, during a holiday to the coast of Cornwall, London music critic and composer Roderick "Rick" Fitzgerald and his sister Pamela fall in love with Windward House, an abandoned seaside home, and buy it from Commander Beech at the unusually low price of GB£1200. Rick and Pamela meet Beech's 20-year-old granddaughter Stella Meredith, who lives with her grandfather in the nearby town of Biddlecombe. Stella is deeply attached to the house, and its sale upsets her, despite its being where her mother Mary Meredith fell to her death from a nearby cliff seventeen years earlier. The commander has forbidden Stella to see Rick or to enter Windward House, but she defies his orders and Rick becomes infatuated with her.