Wealthy Raymond Lovell is the product of the second marriage of a wealthy man and his cook, unfortunately the half sibling of the vindictive survivors of his father's first marriage. When a mine cave-in in their Welsh community has them wanting to help the families of the survivors, they contact Lovell who decides (reluctantly) to come out with his secretary (Nova Philbeam) to investigate their claim and most likely turn them down. What he finds is the trio of bible spouting spinsters determined to get their hands on his money any way they can, even though he's made it clear he's bequesting the majority of it to the loyal Philbeam. Not getting what they want makes these already looney ladies all the more a little nutty in the Macadamia Manor they live in, and through schemes like poisoned wine, a falling grandfather clock and a road that isn't really a road, it appears that neither Philbeam or Lovell will live to see a return to their happy London office space.The three sisters are Nancy Price, Mary Clare and Mary Merrall, maybe unknown names and faces to American audiences, but very theatrical in nature, as if being played by Judith Anderson, Gale Sondergaard and Margaret Hamilton with the direction of Tod Browning. But that's not the case here. This is very British, and delightfully gothic style melodrama, set in a decaying house that makes both Wuthering Heights and Manderlay seem like Tara. The oldest sister reminds me of Mary Morris's vindictive spinster matriarch in the Broadway melodrama "Double Door", made into a 1934 movie where Morris had a large safe room ready to lock anybody in (alive, and with no air) whom she feel betrayed her. The others are supposedly deaf or blind, but equally capable of the nefarious actions of their older sisters. No cute elderberry wine makers are these old ladies, closer to the three witches from Shakespeare's "Scottish Play".Also present for the melodrama is a handsome doctor (Anthony Hulme) who appears to be manipulated by the sisters, their cold-hearted cook and her mentally deranged son who is first seen flinging a rock at the window of Lovell's car. The mood is straight out of Nathaniel Hawthorne or Edgar Allan Poe, and the suspense builds up right to a conclusion that may have you clapping after 90 minutes of hissing at these three descendants of the Stygian witches. Everybody is excellent, with Philbeam delightfully bold as she stands up to each of the sisters every time they either insult her, make an accusation, or roll their hands together as they spout a threat. Lovell makes it clear that as a businessman, he is very strong willed and domineering, but as the youngest brother of the three women, it is obvious that he fears them, and for good reason. Each of the sisters has their own personality, so it's not as if they were playing the same person. Quite outstanding in almost every way, this is a must see for fans of gothic melodrama and horror films where the monsters are quite human.

The sisters are irritated when their successful younger half brother refuses to help them in their philanthropic plans to help the ill-starred community rebuild. They are positively miffed when he later decides to leave his secretary all his assets (including the family house) in his will. Greed and pride in their heritage takes over, philanthropy is set aside, and they begin a program of steady, unsuccessful assaults on their half brother and his secretary, who represent London and modernity.This interesting movie might as well have been titled "Escape from Wales." It is known that the script co-writer, the poet Dylan Thomas, took a dim view of Wales, his homeland, and one can't help but feel that the decrepitude of the sisters, and their fragile old house set in a bleak Welsh town where the mines are defunct, are emblematic of Wales as seen by the author and script writers.Logically, the half brother and secretary want to leave as soon as the danger is palpable, but are thwarted in doing so at every turn. A doctor (recipient of the sisters' philanthropy in the past) zigs in and zags out like a confused, allegiance-less mosquito, for most of the time until the very end.Nova Pilbeam as the secretary has a pleasingly crisp voice and comes across in 1948 as a Katharine Hepburn type, but is a much more natural actress than Hepburn, who usually announced her lines rather artificially instead of just saying them. Pilbeam was very good in Hitchcock's "Young and Innocent," and is better still in this film.For all its melodrama and its interspersed (overly poetic?) political moments, this is an engaging "dark houser" that holds one's interest from the first minute to the last.

Three older sisters live on their family estate in Wales. This household once proudly reigned over a mining town, but the mines dried up and the estate and the town have fallen on hard times. When the land crumbles and a number of homes in the town are destroyed the sisters promise to rebuild the homes.The sisters refuse to accept the reality of the situation, that being they have no money. They all live in the past when their name and wealth was foremost in the community. A half brother is a businessman who works in London. He is asked to travel to Wales and pay for the restoration of the town. When he refuses, weird strange events start happening and the half brother's life is in peril. Are the sisters trying to murder their half brother to get their hands on his money? His secretary believes this to be true, but the locals refuse to believe her.

!948 might have been a tad too late for this Poe-faced Gothic outing just as the poetry masquerading as dialogue and penned by Dylan Thomas was a tad out of keeping with realistic speech. Thomas tips his symbolic glove in an early scene when a collapsing mine triggers falling plaster and cracks in the walls of the 'big house' in the mining village, which is home to the eponymous sisters, who pledge to rebuild the homes in the mining village destroyed by the collapse. They make this pledge despite not having change of a match but (so they think) secure in the knowledge that their half brother (Raymond Lovell), who long ago left the village and became a successful businessman, will underwrite the repairs. Lovell decides to mark their card and journeys to Wales with his secretary, Nova Pilbeam, and anticipates Ann Robinson by a good 50 years with the question, 'is this hell, or Wales'. Once ensconced in the house he begins to resemble Bob Hope in The Cat And The Canary with the three sisters blending into Gale Sondergaard. I can't think of a single reason why you would want to watch this but then what do I know.