The Queen of Spades Reviews
Vernon Young The Hudson Review
Although it would be invidious to slight the multiple skills that organized the complex wonders... it must be allowed that their manifold efforts would have missed fruition without the compelling performances of Anton Walbrook and Edith Evans.
Full Review | Jan 18, 2024
Donald Clarke Irish Times
A score by the great Georges Auric nags and needles, but Dickinson is also at home to eerie silences. Walbrook does something bleaker and frostier with his chiselled good looks than he later managed for Powell in The Red Shoes.
Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Jan 3, 2023
The visual style is baroque horror noir (lots of tilted camera angles), and the central performance from Anton Walbrook as the desperate Captain Herman positively buzzes with pressure-cooker intensity.
Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 27, 2022
Eddie Harrison film-authority.com
if youre tiring of jump-scares and monster masks, The Queen of Spades is almost certainly the best ghost story youve never seen
Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 19, 2022
Sarah Boslaugh TheArtsStl
... full of big ideas and grand feelings along with the psychological intrigue and hint of the supernatural that give this film a special edge.
Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Oct 19, 2019
Philip French Observer (UK)
The Queen of Spades, a stylish, polished melodrama based on the Pushkin novella, is [Thorold Dickinson's] most accomplished film.
Full Review | Oct 18, 2016
Fernando F. Croce CinePassion
Otto Heller's chiaroscuro cinematography and Oliver Messel's Gothic designs play vital roles in Dickinson's thorough demolition of period genteelness for the horror in it.
Full Review | Oct 18, 2016
Sheila Johnston The Arts Desk
The Queen of Spades is a treasured relic of a time when the British cinema momentarily abandoned its good manners and revelled gloriously in visual and emotional excess.
Full Review | Oct 18, 2016
MFB Critics Monthly Film Bulletin
Though it does not run as smoothly as other films directed by Thorold Dickinson, it is an outstanding and worthwhile production.
Full Review | Oct 18, 2016
Anthony Quinn Independent (UK)
The story develops a morbidly exciting grip thanks to the maniacally superstitious Walbrook and Evans's otherworldly chill -- the funeral scene alone will make you jump.
Full Review | Oct 18, 2016
Peter Momtchiloff Electric Sheep
I regret to say I think it is more of a curio than a classic.
Full Review | Oct 18, 2016
Coco Forsythe Future Movies UK
It's beautifully lit and photographed, capturing the decadence of old St Petersburg before the Napoleonic Wars, and creates a wonderful atmosphere of tension in its depiction of a Faustian pact.
Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Oct 18, 2016
Dennis Schwartz Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
A masterfully filmed surreal atmospheric supernatural tale.
Full Review | Original Score: A- | Oct 19, 2014
Peter Bradshaw Guardian
The density of visual detail and incident on screen is superb and the swirling, delirious onrush of storytelling is addictive.
Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Jul 6, 2010
Amber Wilkinson Eye for Film
A black-and-white gem that truly deserves to be hailed as a 'lost classic'.
Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 15, 2010
Rich Cline Shadows on the Wall
This is a little-seen film that deserves to find an audience.
Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 24, 2009
Variety Staff Variety
Opulence of Imperial Russia at the beginning of the 19th century provides a colorful background for this filmization of Alexander Pushkin's short story, which brings to the screen a legend of gambling and intrigue.
Full Review | Mar 26, 2009
Bosley Crowther New York Times
Wild gypsy dancing, shadow lighting and an excellent musical score are well used for mood creation in this weirdly fascinating film.
Full Review | May 6, 2008
Nina Caplan Time Out
Pushkin's marvellously histrionic tale of cupidity and terrible vengeance gets a suitably wild-eyed treatment in Thorold Dickinson's 1949 film.
Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 9, 2006
Emanuel Levy EmanuelLevy.Com
Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 29, 2005