The Clairvoyant

1935, UK, directed by Maurice Elvey

A Gainsborough picture, made back in Britain just after Claude Rains's breakthrough success in The Invisible Man. I'm not at all familiar with Maurice Elvey, an apparently prolific director, though there a few atmospheric sequences and quite interesting use of location and/or stock footage (scenes set at Ascot or in a tunnel under the Humber). As you might expect, Rains is by far the most interesting onscreen performer, although there's not a whole lot he can do with what is at heart a relationship melodrama with unexplained supernatural add-ons (the film doesn't even make a half-hearted attempt to provide some rationale, although I suppose that could be construed as spooky in its own way).