The old lady at the real estate office.
Why was she all about helping the senator? What was her angle? I figured the cop was crooked in the senators corner, on his payola, but why was the old angry lady narking?
shareIt seems like she was an old friend (or perhaps old flame) of the Senator's. If you noticed how casually he greeted her when they talked on the phone (Hello, Minnie). People from their generation didn't liberally use first names unless they were intimate with one another.
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House. My room. Can't walk. My medal. My father. Father, don't!
Minnie is the best evidence we have that Senator Carmichael knew there was 'something not right' about the family history all along. She is obviously there to prevent the house from being occupied, but is thwarted by eager young Clair. What is Clair's connection to this tale? Is she somehow so susceptible to the force of Joseph's will that Joseph is able to use her to get Russell into the house?
shareI don't see how, unless she had spent a lot of time in the house beforehand.
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House. My room. Can't walk. My medal. My father. Father, don't!
She's got a thing for old houses, which is why she works for the society. She might have seen Minnie attempting to hide a dossier on the house, or maybe the dossier itself somehow 'made' itself plain to Clair. The precise mechanics are not revealed, but Clair is quite clearly 'sensitive'. And more than a bit nosey.
shareIt's Minnie who was nosy. Claire was just trying to help John out.
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House. My room. Can't walk. My medal. My father. Father, don't!
Claire displays a studied inquisitiveness throughout the film, much like Russell himself. As their relationship develops, she continues to place herself in the forefront of all the story's important events, even those for which she might be arrested by the police. Her predilictions directly result in Joseph having to chase her off his property with a wheelchair. Minnie by comparison is not nosey, she is simply working in what she perceives is the best interests of Carmichael. Depending on her position in the Society her discovery of the rental of the house may well have been inevitable; her characterization of it as rushed and inappropriate ('not the proper channels') is our only appraisal of how it actually happened.
shareI've always thought Claire came to the empty house (just before the wheelchair chased her) because Joseph drew her there. Remember, the attic room lit up just before she suddenly left.
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House. My room. Can't walk. My medal. My father. Father, don't!
Exactly! All the characters involved who demonstrate some kind of 'sympathy' or 'sensitivity' to elements of Joseph's plight seem to be able to be manipulated in some way. But they also display a willingness to be manipulated, or at least drawn in. Clad in her jockey-jacket and tighty-whitey riding pants, Claire looks like she was made for the 'Antique-wood-paneled-drop-dead-gorgeous-old-houses-with-troubled-pasts' set, even though I don't see her personally picking up a rag and a bottle of lemon oil anytime soon.
shareMinnie is the best evidence we have that Senator Carmichael knew there was 'something not right' about the family history all along. She is obviously there to prevent the house from being occupied, but is thwarted by eager young Clair.
Yes, good point. Wasn't it Minnie who'd hid all of the pre-1920s records of the house? share
It would seem so.
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House. My room. Cant walk. My medal. My father. Father, dont!