Corridor of Mirrors

“Would you care to continue the adventure?” asks Paul Mangin (Eric Portman) of the lovely, married Mifanwy (Edana Romney) at the end of their first encounter in Terence Young ‘s debut feature, Corridor of Mirrors, a quasi-Gothic fever dream of a film that seems to warp time as it presents a feast of visual splendors. Possessing some combination of charm and misconception, the obscenely wealthy Mangin lives in the past, bathing his enormous mansion in art and furnishings from a previous era, including a Renaissance painting of a woman who resembles Mifanwy and whom Mangin claims to have loved in a previous life. While initially delighted by Mangin’s obsessive attentions, Mifanwy soon feels more like a prop than a person (“You played up to my vanity”) and returns to the reality of her family life. Told primarily in flashback, the story leads up to blackmail, madness, and murder, but most of the film weaves through romantic interludes, costume balls, and one baroque sequence after another, all the while keeping the viewer unanchored and disoriented as if participating in Mangin’s delusions. What’s clearly not a delusion is Piménoff’s spectacular production design and Thomas’s gripping cinematography which bring out the best in each other, creating an extraordinary world in which mirrors reflect the past, candles illuminate the present, and shadows swallow whatever doesn’t fit perfectly into Mangin’s mirage. Barbara Mullen plays the spectral housemaid Veronica, who would be equally at home in a Brontë novel. Note: Some viewers will recognize the wax statue in Madame Tussaud’s from a similar scene in Lawrence Huntington’s Wanted for Murder (1946).