I've seen this now probably 10 times or more over the decades – it's an out and out genuine British film classic, and still only Thorold Dickinson and Anton Walbrook's second best to Gaslight made 10 years before. The stories themselves had similarities, Walbrook in both playing an avaricious amoral character using a weak-willed woman to meet his own despicable ends. The production values in both were high lending a richly dark and brooding b&w atmosphere on nitrate film stock to compliment the inventive camera-work.

Relatively poor Captain in the Royal Engineers jealous of the wealthy Cavalry officers around him dreams of making his fortune at faro, and eventually gets his way at the price of his precious soul. How he does it is a spooky tale involving an ancient irritating Countess played by the perfect Edith Evans and his attempt to get her to acquiesce to his demands. Who can forget the funeral scene when Walbrook is wondering how the dead can give up their secrets! Everyone acted their hearts out, Ronald Howard nicely restrained to Walbrook's occasional lapses into melodrama. Auric's music is spot on and as graceful as ever, we even get a preview of Orpheus in here to which he composed the music for the following year. The game of faro as depicted here always struck me as particularly boring, but I suppose it was as good a way as any for someone to lose money fast. The secret of winning money at cards is not to play for money at all and to keep your money. I simply can't understand why anyone would watch this for the full 90 minutes hating almost every minute and then waste more of their time telling us!

An utterly marvellous film, a UK post-War Wonder which will survive all comments positive and negative.

An appropriately spooky and atmospheric adaptation of the Pushkin short story, with extra material added to layer in the characters and plot developments. It's a fun little film that has much in common with both the Ealing classic DEAD OF NIGHT and the films of Val Lawton - it's slow-paced and engrossing; nothing much happens explicitly, and there's a real sense of impending doom over the whole thing. The cast is particularly good at bringing the given material to life too.

Any other version of Alexander Pushkin's short story classic The Queen of Spades, that isn't one of the brilliant Tchaikovsky opera, has to be really outstanding to beat this film, which is often considered the definitive version. And it's easy to see why. The costumes and sets are very handsome and the cinematography is sumptuous while also brilliantly having an ominous effect. The score from Georges Auric, who also wrote the score for 1946's La Belle et La Bete (another classic),is haunting without ever being obvious or intrusive(in fact a lot of it is a large part of what makes the atmosphere so effective). While Thorold Dickinson directs with a more than sure hand, there are some imaginative touches and he allows the atmosphere to really speak, a good thing considering that it is a ghost story, and the dialogue is intelligently written and easy to understand while respectful to Pushkin. The story is hugely compelling, yes it is a slow-burner(which is not a hindrance at all, the film was unlikely to be as effective otherwise),but the spooky atmosphere and the high levels of suspense make the film's best scenes chill the blood even now. In particular the card scene, a scene that you'd be hard pressed to find a better one on film. The acting is spot on, especially from Anton Walbrook, who gives perhaps a career best performance, and a heavily made up(and effectively) Edith Evans- looking deliberately older than her years- who is terrifying and tormented. Yvonne Mitchell is an affecting Liza and I haven't seen Ronald Howard more endearingly sensitive than here. All in all, beautiful and chilling both as an adaptation of a classic and as a film in general, one of the best and maybe most under-appreciated in the genre. 10/10 Bethany Cox