Operating on the time-tested theory that moviegoers are seldom more satisfied than when a film causes them to experience cold chills, RKO-Radio yesterday treated audiences at the Palace to a creepy melodrama, called "The Spiral Staircase". This is a shocker, plain and simple, and whatever pretentions it has to psychological drama may be considered merely as a concession to a currently popular fancy. It is quite evident by the technique director Robert Siodmak has employed to develop and sustain suspense - brooding photography and ominously suggestive settings - that he is at no time striving for narrative subtlety. How could he have been when he has drawn upon practically every established device known to produce goose pimples? However, the only thing that really matters is that Mr. Siodmak has used the rumble and cracking of thunder, the flickering candlelight, the creaking door and the gusts of wind from out of nowhere to startling advantage. For even though you are conscious that the tension is being built by obvious trickery, the effect is nonetheless telling. [Bosley Crowther in the New York Times, 7 February 1946]

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The opening sequence is remarkably effective in the casual way it establishes the milieu - a small American town of the early twentieth century. The camera first draws us into a crowded theater. Then it tilts upward. As it drifts into the apartment above, director Siodmak contrasts the moviegoers/voyeurs below with the silent voyeur who waits within the closet of a crippled woman. The camera holds on the intruder's eyes in extreme close-up as he watches the woman change her clothes. As she pulls on a dress over her head, the killer strikes and cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca's camera captures the victim's hands as they contort from pain. [...] Much of the story takes place within a wonderfully ornate Victorian style mansion. Musuraca's camera prowls the hallways and basement with a particular fondness for shots with great depth of field. When Helen [Dorothy McGuire] approaches the Warren grounds, Musuraca places the camera low so that it emphasizes a wrought iron fence. Lighting from inside the fence casts wonderfully eerie shadows on the pathway as Helen walks to the front gate. This is a gorgeously photographed movie with meticulously crafted lighting schemes. Musuraca was one of the great cinematographers. [Gary Johnson in 'Images: A Journal of Film and Popular Culture']