The film is based on the 1927 novel Benighted by J. B. Priestley, published in the United States under the same title as the film, and was adapted for the screen by R. C. Sherriff and Benn Levy. The movie also stars Melvyn Douglas and features Charles Laughton (in his first Hollywood film), Ernest Thesiger, Raymond Massey, Gloria Stuart and Lilian Bond as the ingenue. According to the Penguin Encyclopaedia of Horror and the Supernatural, the Femm family's ancient patriarch was played by a woman, Elspeth Dudgeon (billed as "John Dudgeon"), because Whale could not find a male actor who looked old enough for the role.