We’re in haunted house land: ideally, an old, dark stormy, and isolated place. A mansion, maybe a manor or castle. There might not be any haunting just now, but some believe that there has been. Likely, we’re in England. The grounds has a lake, or pond, for, you know, bodies. Not to mention a graveyard; and throw in some secret passageways while we’re there.

Both the family and its mansion have a history--a curse, legend, at least a disputed will. Reminders are ever-present: thanks perhaps to shifty portraits and rustling suits of armor. If candles aren’t featured, they’ll be fetched for the inevitable power outage.

Like the chiller/thriller, this sub-genre crosses over into Horror territory--certainly the atmosphere is apt for Horror. The absence of the supernatural (or at least its appearance) marks our visit into the mystery landscape. Comic interludes, and nutty characters certainly have their place, particularly in the pre-war examples.

The Old Dark House, 1932.

********* 9.0

An Old, Dark, Dysfunctional Family

When I read that The Old Dark House was something of a comedy, I thought: oh, no, another movie mangled by slapstick English goofiness. I was surprised to discover that it was extremely creepy, atmospheric, and filled with bizarre characters.

Each member of the Femm family, along with their servants, are secretive, menacing, even dangerous, not merely odd. In short, they’re weird. Karloff’s Morgan and Elspeth Dudgeon’s Roderick are as frightening as any ghost or monster. Eva Moore’s Rebecca not only acts strange, with her distorted reflections in the mirror, she’s hideous.

The storm-stranded guests who, as incredulous witnesses, seem to be the victims of a collective nightmare. Charles Laughton as a blow-hard aristocrat, typifies the innocent eccentricity of the guests juxtaposed to the macabre house and family.

Some folks feel let down by the ending; but I think it adds to the nightmare aspect of the film. Daytime means a return to the normal world, as though the events of the previous night never happened. The heightened strangeness of the setting shows a dream-like tint, where things seem a little off, and people are somehow unnatural.

At the same time, the fact that there’s nothing supernatural going on makes it scarier. Reality seems supernatural in The Old Dark House.

The Moonstone, 1934.

***** 5.0

A Dark And Stormy Night... "Eh, What? What?!"

The coolest credits ever--art deco image with two streamlined trains pulling ’Monogram’ and ’Pictures’ through skyscrapers on elevated rails. And then the rest of the credits in a more traditional, but no less artistic manner.

The Moonstone, if we’re not familiar with the Wilkie Collins novel, is a huge gem. Starting in Scotland Yard with Inspector Cuff (Charles Irwin), we head out for the country, on a dark and stormy night, to the Verinder’s mansion, Hearncastle, or is it Hearn Manor?. Anne Verinder (Phyllis Barry) lives there with her father Sir John (Herbert Bunston). Dr. Jennings (Olam Hytten) is on hand, just in case...something happens, I suppose. Von Lucker (Gustav Von Seyfferititz), "a notorious moneylender" is there to get Sir John to cough up a debt.

He recognizes Roseanne, a maid, it seems that they’ve had some business. Von Kicker wants the Moonstone in lieu of the debt. Also in debt is Godfrey (Jameson Thomas); Anne got away from him, so he’s in arrears in his love life as well "You know I love you" he tells her, forlornly. Actually he’s her cousin; he’s fixated on her Moonstone as well.

Soon Anne’s fiance Franklin/Frank Drake (David Manners) shows up with the fabled jewel; also Yandoo (John Davidson), Franklin’s servant. The lights go out; the Moonstone disappears. A servant quickly finds it under a table. Anne hits the hay, but a couple of hours later Sir John tumbles in, then a hallway door opens...someone’s been in Anne’s room and pilfered the Moonstone.

A servant finds Sir John laid out on the floor, not dead though. They just sort of gawk at him. "Don’t just stand there like a stuffed owl!" Frank admonishes Godfrey. Hankering for action, Frank wants to ring up Cuff, but the line’s dead. In this very make-believe world, it’s not too surprising that Cuff actually shows up at the door as needed. He interviews each person. Weirdly, Anne gets petulant, and goes back to her room, more or less indifferent to both her father and the Moonstone.

Cuff reveals that the servant Roseanne has been in cahoots with Von Lucker, Yandoo’s problem is that his countrymen are sworn to recover the Moonstone for India. In short, everyone’s somewhat compromised. Godfrey doubly so.

"You nosy old owl!" the servant Betteredge barks at Cuff. Sir John mumbles some cryptic stuff about Roseanna and hot milk; one clue is an experimental anaesthetic drug that the doctor is going on about. Apparently, he and Sir John have been working on it. Has Sir John been under its influence? Sir John had Roseanne give it to Frank in his hot milk.

Supposedly, the stuff (RTH) will make a person recall memories; they give it to Frank (in the hot milk again) to see what happens. Sleepwalking, Frank goes to Anne’s room and takes a substitute gem. He thinks Yandoo is Godfrey. "Godfrey, Godfrey? Take this wretched thing. The place is full of thieves!" Which means Godfrey and Von Lucker get fingered for the heist.

Thanks to Scotland Yard tidying things up, all’s well. Frank and Anne make with the Moonstone (with each other too). I suppose with this ultra-abbreviated 45 minute version of an already short 62 minute original, some plot points got misplaced, like so many little Moonstones. It’s not explained how the drug can make someone do so many complex things. I can buy sleepwalking, and given the semi-horror mystery atmosphere, I’ll even go along with the sleepwalker’s ability to duplicate previous behavior.

But how could Von Lucker/Godfrey ’program’ Frank to steal the Moonstone in the first place? All that Jennings offer is that RTH provides "a stimulating reaction" to the slight overdose. Not much of an explanation. It might’ve been better to induce a trance-like state through hypnosis, then control Frank by instructions/suggestions. That method would be more in keeping with the mystery premise, and it’s much more believable.

Also, it seems that Sir John knew all about the theft plan. That’s incredible for two reasons: it assumes that he would steal, or conspire to steal from his own daughter; and, having done so, that he’s somehow not culpable. After all, he and Jennings cooked up the drug--it couldn’t have been used without his knowledge and direction.

The best aspect of The Moonshine is the sniping between Betteredge and Cuff. "Go down to the river and put the water over your head" he tells her. They only need sneer at each other to project mutual loathing. That’s vintage British humor at its best.

Other than those juicy morsels, a genuinely creepy atmosphere, plus the very artistic credits, The Moonstone doesn’t really stick with you. Sort of the opposite reaction to the fabled RTH, as this movie probably won’t have many viewers repeating the experience, either awake or asleep.

The Ghost Walks, 1934

******* 7.0

Dark and stormy night plus people stranded in an old mansion adds up to a ’30s horror/crime mystery. Funereal piano music doesn’t hurt the atmosphere. The unlucky traveler Prescott Ames (John Miljan) shows up with the playwright Herman Wood and his secretary Homer Erskine at the Shaws’ mansion. There we meet June Collyer (as Gloria), who’s engaged to Ames but has to fight off Terry Shaw (Donald Kinke). A scream pierces the house. Even the grandfather clock sounds spooky.

As lightening crackles outside, Terry’s sister Beatrice (Eve Southern) appears, “that woman gives me goose pimples” says Homer. Dr. Kent (Henry Kolker) explains her as mentally imbalanced–but a medium as well. She speaks of her husband’s murder in the house; he puts in a non-appearance of a sort as a vacant chair moving towards her at the dining table. Suddenly, the power goes off, revealing a very cool floating death-mask. No one reacts to that though.

In a burst of manic comedy, it’s revealed that the playwright staged all that; there’s even a script available, all of the guests are actors. Apparently, the house is just temporarily occupied by the Shaws, maybe just as a suitable setting for the play. But, reality intrudes, Beatrice turns up dead; eyes watch from a portrait, a secret panel opens up. Everybody starts explaining themselves with alibis; it’s more than a little confusing, as someone says “let the play continue”.

But a guard from the local sanitation shows up, looking for an escaped patient “We call him Case 222, but I guess you’d call him a homicidal maniac”. Weirdly, some of the guests don’t want to admit that anything’s really amiss. Another bizarre device comes into play, so to speak, as Homer’s bed frame descends, threatening to crush him. Herman spews some great one-liners at him “you’ve got the brain of an oyster…” Meanwhile, Terry continues to mess with Gloria. At least someone goes for the police, but other speculate that even the guard is an actor (so he is). Beatrice is still dead, though.

More sanitarium guards.. The secret chamber is revealed. The doctor (the actual escapee) has Beatrice on a slab, and Herman, etc. bound up. What a great menacing laugh the doctor’s got! But, yes, even the murder’s a hoax, err, part of the play The Ghost Walks. I guess, with a microscope, the plot adds up. It didn’t help that my DVD had sketchy audio; in a talky movie with a complex plot, that’s a handicap (not the filmmaker’s fault of course).

This is very entertaining, having an unusual premise that is carefully worked out. Other than Beatrice’s late husband’s possible ghost, there’s more mystery than supernatural stuff going on, but that doesn’t hurt much. The comedy is blended in very well, as the situation is fairly absurd; which, thanks to the fleshed-out atmosphere, actually makes it creepier.

The Monster Walks, 1932

***** 5.0

Well, before the ghost walked, there was this monster...but,

This could have been a lot better. Great atmosphere, a decent premise, and not a bad plot. The mansion has every haunted house attribute: it’s old, dimly lit, has secret passageways, creepy servants, a corpse upstairs, an ape in the basement, plus a dark, stormy night outside. Also, at least on my DVD, there was a weird quiver in the geometric objects (tables, chairs, paintings, walls) in some scenes. I’m sure it was just the film quality, but it did add some ghostliness.

Unfortunately, the pacing quickly bogs us down. In fact, we’re stuck at the foot of the stairs every few minutes, waiting for something to happen. The mostly dull assortment of characters huddled together for the reading of the dead man’s will don’t deserve a dime of it. Only the surviving brother Robert and his servant/misbegotten son Hanns are in on the plot to kill the heiress Ruth, but they’re all guilty of wooden performances.

The chauffeur (Willie Best) is not only is the best actor, but his character is also the most sensible. Who wants to stay in a house with apes and dead people? Actually, a murderer too.

The plot keeps us guessing. At first is seems plausible that Robert fakes his disability to skulk about, pretending to be the ape. He’s more or less snubbed by his brother’s will; and, as the next in line, he stands to gain if Ruth dies. The ape is too obvious to be the killer. If it did get loose and were violent, it wouldn’t target Ruth, it would probably just go after the nearest person.

The revelation that the maid and Robert are Hanns’ parents explains why Robert might use him to get Ruth killed, as Hanns is at least as motivated as Robert to eliminate her. The fact that Hans mistakenly strangles his own mother is a nice twist.

At first I thought that the ape should’ve had something to do; he spends the whole movie locked up. But, in another way, he’s ever- present. He’s a suspect throughout, and appears to live up to his reputation, thanks to the fake arm/hand prop that Hanns uses. The worst aspect of the ape’s ‘character’ comes in the last scene.

It’s one thing to use Best as comic relief (his portrayal as a stereo-typically subservient, hapless, and superstitious black man is explicit); but having him relate his ancestry to the animal is plain disgusting. I know this sort of stuff was popular in movies for a long time, reflecting the level of acceptable racism, but, coming after everything in the plot has been revealed, it’s just tacked-on.

There’s decent mystery in The Monster Walks, but there could’ve been a bit more skullduggery, and a lot less talking.

The Unsuspected, 1947.

*******7.0

Claude Rains stars in this complex murder mystery. He’s the “unsuspected” one (as Victor Grandison/’Grandy’), true crime radio show host). Using a cunning strategy of carrying out the very set of deeds that his show features, Grandison murders a couple of people until his cover ‘story’ is blown. There’s producer Jane Moynihan (Constance Bennett) and homicide detective (Fred Clark), and goon-of-all-trades Press (Jack Lambert).

The plot involves Grandy’s attempt to maintain a lavish lifestyle by taking advantage of his niece, heiress Matilda (Joan Caulfield). When she’s thought to have died in South America, Grandy, as her guardian, stands to inherit the estate. But then, a man claiming to be Matilda’s husband, Steve Howard (Ted North), shows up.

Steve and Victor are suspicious of each other’s motives; especially because Matilda, who is in fact returns in just fine condition, doesn’t remember ever have being married. Meanwhile, Victor’s other niece, Althea (Audrey Totter), already tied up with Matilda because her husband Oliver (Hurd Hatfield) was her cousin’s ex, feuds with him over Victor’s culpability. Oliver unwittingly makes himself a target.

Actually, it was Victor’s secretary Rosyln’s suspicious death that gets things going. Howard is in fact posing as Matilda’s husband in order to find out how Rosalyn died; he was Rosalyn’s lover. The theme of a young woman seemingly come back from the dead, with a couple of suitors/gigolos coming out the woodwork, became a successful recipe with 1944’s Laura. Let’s see how The Unsuspected stacks up against that noir classic.

Well, we start with two Laura-esque bits: a murder, preceded by a prowler in a swanky house–skulking about under a portrait of the heroine that hangs over the mantle. Not the art-moderne chic of Laura’s flat; rather an old dark house.

After a restaurant scene with Victor and Althea, there’s a surprise party at the Grandisons. Oliver is getting drunk, as usual; Howard pops up. Althea seems intrigued by him. As they talk under the portrait, she tells him about Matilda; that she’s missing, and so on. Does he know her? Yeah, Matilda’s his wife.

We knew that. Anyway, Jane shows up on Victor’s heels. Howard is snooping around the deadly chandelier, but he’s interrupted by Donovan. A bit later, Victor meets up with Steve, and basically interviews him. Victor doesn’t believe him, but the detective cautions him that it’s such an improbable story that it’s probably true.

We see (guess who?) Matilda boarding a plane in Rio. Back home, Victor dictates his latest story to Jane. She’s a real cut-up. Donovan has the skinny on Steve–he’s legit. It’s obvious, too, that Althea has her glue hooks into Steve. He admits that Matilda might not have loved him as much as he did. But Victor comes with the news that Matilda is alive, and coming soon.

Althea lets them know that her cousin has always taken (men) from her. Steve picks up his wife, but she doesn’t recognize him. She seems to look forward to seeing Grandy more than Steve. She’d not only been shipwrecked, but had had a nervous breakdown. She won’t even acknowledge when others remember that they’re married.

Sort of reverse gaslighting. The presiding judge can’t even convince her. Back to the mansion: the shifty-looking Press is holding a gun on Victor. He’s the one that Victor has fingered as “The Unsuspected” murderer of his current true crime take. He’s got a recording of the guy confessing as well–to Rosyln’s murder. Of course, that was in the context of the hood’s act on Grandy’s show.

To lay it all out, we’ve got an actual murder, that is reenacted on the radio. So, is the guy who played the murderer guilty of the murder? Or has he been framed? It’s impossible to know; but we do know that the murder happened at Grandison’s house.

Anyway, when Steve brings Matilda back to the house she kicks Althea out of her old room. Steve and Victor discuss Matilda’s mental state, and the marriage. Althea serves drinks to Steve and Oliver; she could care less what her husband thinks. More strange conversations upstairs, as Victor guilt-trips her with leaving Oliver in the dust long ago.

More significantly, he lets on that he thinks Steve is posing, and the whole marriage thing is a hoax. An instant gust of wind, and Grandy’s stalking around outside. Back in town, Steve meets up with Jane; she’s been doing some sleuthing for him about Rosyln. This is getting to be like Peyton Place, with Oliver drooling around Matilda.

Eerily, she barges in on Jane, expecting to find Rosalyn. Donovan digs up the file on Rosalyn–one photo shows the clock, which stopped in her struggle. Then the phone records, other details. At the house, where it always seems to be night, Oliver can’t help chatting up Matilda. He still loves her. Donovan, downstairs with Victor, announces, with unintentional irony “You finally have a murder case in your own home.”

‘Purely routine,’ on the night in question, were Victor’s whereabouts? Althea’s? Speaking of her, she’s gluing herself to Steve. She’s bitter, jealous, broke, and drunk “I like to break things!” He tells her that he gave info to the cops about Rosalyn; she admits that she was around that night, and heard Rosalyn scream.

Oliver wants to just disappear. When Althea demands to know why, he responds “Alright, I’ll give you one [reason]; in carefully selected four-letter words.” Back to Grandy’s studio–he puts on a record, a recording of Althea and Oliver arguing over Steve. She says she only married him to get him away from Matilda. It’s done in real time, as they’re in an adjoining room.

Althea pretty much fingers Grandy for Rosalyn’s murder. Grandy encourages Oliver to leave. Now he’s got Althea cornered in the sound-proof room, confronting her for telling Oliver. He tells her that he knows that she made the last call to Rosalyn; he’s got her six ways to Sunday, as she’s dependent on him.

Anyway, Grandy’s plan for her doesn’t involve four-letter words, rather a chrome six-shooter. Bam! But why is he recording this too? Now, he’s in the garage, sabotaging the brake lines in one of the cars. Guess which car he suggests that Oliver take? Thus we begin one of the more interesting runaway car crash sequences. [We’ll come back to this after the domestic mess is tidied up.]

The first part of the thrill-ride is great; downhill on mountain roads, Oliver really carves his way along. This is real stunt-work–no speeded-up film. But the crash itself has some surprises. It’s not uncommon in movies for the car that’s headed off the cliff to be different that one that tumbles down the hill (saves budget to actually wreck an old wreck). But this thing changes twice: from a light-colored ’40 Plymouth coupe to a dark early ’30s sedan, then finally to a mid-’30s coupe!

Back at the house, Steve tries to warn Matilda to split. Apparently, the story’s that Victor and Althea arranged with Oliver to break it off with Matilda. Victor next plays the tape of the Althea/Oliver fight; then, he finds Steve and Matilda to ‘help,’ as though the fight is live action. That way, he can lure them down to the studio.

What makes this ruse work is that the house of a recorded gunshot, and Althea’s corpse on the floor, suggest that she’d just been shot by Oliver. That dude is going off the deep end… It’s kind of overkill (bad pun) to sick the cops on Oliver; I guess Grandy figures it’ll look the frame-up more squared if he doesn’t just let him crash, but make him guilty of murder into the bargain.

Donovan discovers, thanks to quick work, that Althea’s fatal shot came from –the gun it came from–we’re supposed to read his mind as to who’s gun it is. At a fancy restaurant, Matilda meets up with Jane and Steve. Now the big reveal: he had faked the marriage deal. He figures that the only way to find out what happened to Rosalyn was from the inside; his cover as Matilda’s husband provided a skeleton key, so to speak.

Sounds plausible: her breakdown and disappearance gave him both the time and opportunity for his scheme to work. He did bribe the waiter in the earlier scene, and the judge? He was Rosyln’s uncle. Now, though, Matilda won’t bad mouth Grandy; but she admits to the old guy that she’s in love with Steve. Another disingenuous statement comes when she laments that Steve doesn’t “know you as you really are.” He just says “perhaps he does, my dear, perhaps he does.”

He sure does. She offers to help with his broadcast. He clues her in on the plot, dictating. It sounds like a verbal suicide note. Oh boy, here comes Steve. And, remember the goon Victor was blackmailing? He’s needed again. Press (the goon) shows up. Steve finds the record of Althea’s shooting; he calls into Donovan with this new tip.

But, the old wires-are-cut deal cuts the call short. Grandy starts burning the records; I guess the line to the guest house is ok, because Steve’s able to call Matilda and set up a rendevous there. Press short circuits that elopement by literally boxing Steve up in a crate (after knocking him around).

“I seem to have reached the breaking point” says Grandy when Matilda tells him that Steve has disappeared. Oh, he just took his car in for something; actually Press has him in the back of his Chevy pickup. Oh boy, Grandy’s offering a drink to Matilda. But, just before she takes a sip, Press calls. She thinks it’s Steve, but Press hangs up when she gets on.

Now she does drink-up. He deposits a load of sleeping pills next to her: reviving for a sec, she just sees the fatal chandelier, and everything else gets blurry. Plus there’s her ‘suicide note,’ that is, the dictation that she took earlier. Just in the nick of time Donovan arrives; after breaking down the door, Matilda’s rescued. (Steve’s aborted call must’ve triggered the response).

Although a half-loaded pick-up doesn’t sound like a racer’s ride, it’s Press’s turn to play thrill driver. In the police car, Donovan’s giving orders over the radio. Matilda, very unrealistically, has completely recovered from the drugged drink. Press heads for his job site, an enormous junkyard. Hoping that the crane operator will hasten to pick up the crate and dump it in a roaring fire, he gets a move on.

The cops hold up the crane, and fish out Steve in the wooden sardine can. Amazingly, there’s enough time for the whole gang to converge on the swanky studio where Grandy is pretty much spilling the beans. Last scene is a nice noir touch: he and a few cops file down a shadowy alley, through a narrow gate, obviously to jail. The absolute end.

I thought I’d like this a lot more than I did. The plot got so thick I could’ve croaked before all the dust settled. The premise is promising, the atmosphere works well, and the car chases are spectacular (much-needed jolts of action in this otherwise talky movie).

The casting is very good. Totter has the snarky sophisticated look just right for Althea, Caulfield makes a suitably angelic Matilda, and Grandy couldn’t be any other than the smirking, beady-eyed Rains. Oliver is kind of a milk-sop, but then he’s supposed to be. Jane and Max are semi-comic relief, semi-reality checks; they seem like nuts, but only in contrast to the real nuts. Press is an all-purpose goon.

The problem is all the melodrama. You would think the two couples were a bunch of twelve-year-olds, for all their desperate entanglements–none of which seems very significant. It was a surprise that Steve had faked his way into the family; but not surprising that it was because of yet another relationship.

It’s true, as many critics note, that as good as Rains’ performance is, he does look physically out of place among the other guys. Not such a big thing. What is a big deal is that Rosalyn’s murder, which sets the whole plot in motion, doesn’t seem to have a motive. The other murders are attempts to cover up the first one; but are we really to believe that Grandy had reached some psychological tipping point, so that he couldn’t not kill Rosalyn?

It would’ve helped to have some background on Grandy and Matilda. She’s had two traumatic experiences in a short period of time; why is this all off-screen? Grandy, who comes off as a sort of caricature of a serial killer, suddenly becomes an ‘active’ psychopath. It’s usually good to hit the ground running; that’s what helps The Unsuspected start with a flourish. But about halfway through, it just bogs down.

This is definitely worth watching, for Rains and Totter especially, and some of the supporting characters as well. If the viewer can’t remember when who supposedly loved who, or why and whether these two or those two might’ve been married, don’t worry. Just watch Jane and the butler trade quips.

The Woman In White, 1948.

******** 8.0

"I Can’t Live In Peace In This Black Morass Of Mystery!"

"A Filthy Night In A Filthy World!" intones Sir Percival (John Emery) as he and co-conspirators Frederick Fairlie (John Abbott) and Count Cisco (Sidney Greenstreet) plot to pry away Laura Fairlie’s (Elanor Parker’s) inheritance. Meanwhile, doppelganger Ann (Parker dressed in white), tries to save her ’twin cousin’ from the greedy, murderous guys. Ann’s deal seems to be living in hidden quarters reached via secret passageways and in the surrounding woods.

Thankfully, Walter Hartright (Gig Young) arrives to stir things up. Kind of stupid of the three villains to let an outsider intrude. Well, that’s Wilkie Collin’s fault: there’s no story without Hartright’s role (what an apt name for a good guy). The Laura/Ann mystery certainly has nasty side-effects: an asylum, madness, escape, murder (by poisoning?), switching identities, abuse--with the makings of another murder, ghostly appearances... An excellent gothic horror recipe. Actually, as many have noted, it’s Greenstreet who’s the monster here. The way his moon-face looms out of the darkness is as chilling as any ghostly presence.

Fairlie is plenty creepy too. A passive-aggressive, misanthropic hypochondriac, he’s so incredibly nuts it’s funny. Comic relief, you could say so; disturbing, very. Surprisingly, Agnes Moorehead has a pivotal role as the Countess Fosco. She sort of inhabits the plot as it reaches the denouement. Both the Countess and the ’real’ (?) cousin Marian (Alexis Smith) go about in black; a slightly ironic inversion of their positive roles. I suppose I’m used to seeing Young as a cool-cat in later roles; but he seems oddly innocent here, which suits his character well. All of the principal characters are well-cast.

Surely the Victorian origins of this story explain the intricate plot. I don’t so much mean what we actually see, but rather the web of the past that’s spinning into the present. That sort of family-history-in-the-closet stuff is just fine for novels; usually it just clogs up movies with too much non-visual exposition. But here, maybe because of the multiple perspectives, the off-screen drama is fairly elegantly woven in.

Just as it takes a coven of bad guys to conjure up menace in The Woman In White, the trio of the Countess, Marian, and Hartright are all needed to save the day, at least for Laura. It is good that Hartright gets Marian (smart, feisty, and gorgeous), but I could do without their whole future history portrayed as a lovely tableau of domestic bliss. Another Victorian necessity observed. In fact, the movie is so authentic that there is no question of suspension of disbelief. I’m not referring to the plot, except as it’s emblematic of the 1850s, but that the world we see and hear is perfectly Victorian--an otherworldly ability recreates an era. Very entertaining.

The Lady Vanishes, 1938.

******* 7.0

"I Just Had A Particularly Idiotic Idea"

I didn’t much like this on earlier viewings, but this time around it fell into place for me. Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave make an enjoyable couple of amateur sleuths; the ’vanishing’ Miss Froy (Dame May Whitty) is the focus of the mystery. There’s a sort of ’ Ship of Fools’ feeling to the trainload of travelers, doubly isolated by traveling through a fairly menacing foreign country. The interplay of joviality and nonchalance with deception and danger is finely balanced.

The inn is even more isolated than the train. So it certainly fits to start there and progress through the twists and turns to the eventual denouement in London. Still, it takes a few blue moons for the plot to get on the right track, so to speak. Not much would be lost if the movie had begun with the characters leaving the provincial station. As it is, we’re treated to an entire funhouse of slapstick and overly-picturesque peasant hijinks. There’s more comic relief stowed-away on the train ride; plus, things simultaneously get sinister.

Suspension of disbelief is aided by Iris’s bump on the head from the flower pot. Maybe she’s imagining this and that--maybe Miss Froy and everything else--at least up until Dr. Hartz (Paul Lukas) is unmasked. There’s an almost horror component to Iris’s quest; only Gilbert believes her about Miss Froy. His commitment to her slowly but surely leads to her tossing off her intended for Gilbert. Actually, the espionage plot ends with the shootout in the woods. By this time, though, we’re probably more interested in seeing what happens between Iris and Gilbert. It’s as though the entire journey were a sort of bad dream for both of them; the annoying-tune-as-code is just the sort of absurd gibberish of dream residue. Still, even though the train ride is often just nutty, it’s also disturbing, disorienting, and hazardous.

Not only is there overt mistaken identity with the nun as an accomplice/turncoat and Miss Froy as the ’patient’, but most of the train crew and passengers are involved in deception to engender their conspiracy. There’s a pervasive irrationality that does sometimes overlap into strange happenings. The one that kills me is: how does Miss Froy survive to play the piano at the Foreign Office after she’s been shot in the woods (as she runs from the train)? At least two other characters, though not apparently killed, spring back into action after being seriously injured. It does make some counter-intuitive sense to use a harmless-looking elderly lady as an agent; such a person would pass unnoticed, unlike just about anyone else.

Gilbert’s character is extremely well-thought-out. He’s such a Jack-of-all-trades, we could almost have him as a double-agent. He’s not just a smooth operator--he helps to solve the mystery, leads the defense against the hostile soldiers, drives the train briefly, and ultimately tries to deliver the message to London. From his very first scene with Iris, as he commanders her room at the inn, he’s living by his wits, but he always knows what to do. If we see the plot from Gilbert’s point-of-view, the juxtaposition of comedy, romance, mystery, and intrigue is believable.

The Lady Vanishes is very entertaining--but starts slow, gets tiresome, and, then, gets both wild and fun, but not without some additional pitfalls.

Cry Wolf, 1947.

******* 7.0

Pretty cool premise for an old dark house-style mystery. Errol Flynn is Mark Caldwell, who tells visitor Sandra Marshall/Demarest (Barbara Stanwyck) that his nephew James Demarest (Richard Basehart), whom she claims is her missing husband, is dead. Not surprisingly, Sandra questions that, and sticks around to scope the situation out.

Mark’s brother, Senator Caldwell, brings Sandra to the house. There was a funeral notice about James (Jim). Mark insists that Jim’s marriage must’ve been “secret.” She figures that she’s the beneficiary of his will; Mark’s view is that the five-month-old marriage marks her as a gold digger. But he nonetheless introduces her to Jim’s sister Julie (Geraldine Brook) as Mrs. Demarest.

Julie pops up at Sandra’s room. She mentions a laboratory (oh boy!), and that Mark had been interfering in Jim’s life. Anyway, the story is that, subsequent to a fatal bout of pneumonia, Jim ended up in the mysterious lab. Next day, mourners come for the funeral. Sandra goes riding with Julie, who plans to meet a boyfriend. Incredibly, Mark shows up, basically spying on Julie. A worker points out to Sandra where the lab is.

Once again, Julie comes into Sandra’s room at night: she’s frightened. They both here a man screaming, and skulk around to investigate–are we going to see the lab? Not so fast! Creepily, Mark ‘checks in’ on Julie. In the morning, all appears…not so normal. Julie tells Mark about the screaming–naturally he attributes this to her “nightmares.” Afterwards, Sandra and Julie huddle up; Julie takes her to Jim’s room, looking for clues.

They talk about Julie’s inheritance and family history. The only odd thing about his room is that certain doodads are missing–could Jim be alive? Perhaps in the lab? Right now I’m thinking, it’s 1947, not 1847; why doesn’t Sandra call the police, or at least an attorney? Mark takes Sandra to task for “upsetting” Julie. The pot calling the kettle black, or whatnot. Mark has an aloof, but semi-menacing demeanor; he’d be wiser to affect just a bit of sadness for Jim’s demise.

Weirdly, he’s more interested in sweet-talking and smooching Sandra. Now it’s Julie who’s suffering, getting locked in, it seems. Sandra learns how to infiltrate the lab, via the dumb-waiter (dumb terminology for such a clever device). Sure enough, Sandra gets smart, and hoists herself into the lab’s antechamber. She overhears Mark talking to Laidell (John Ridgely) about her, and about a prescription. Nearly found out, she gets back to her room in time to hear Julie scream.

Julie has ‘accidentally’ fallen to her death. A doctor drives up, saying they’ll have to call the coroner. Sandra sneaks up to an attic room, and goes out on the roof, on her way to drop in, literally, on the lab. Uh-oh, Mark is there. “What makes you think Jim has risen from the dead?” He tries to spin Julie’s death as Sandra’s fault. He shows her the door.

Then, Julie’s burial. Afterwards, Mark opens a safe, and offers Sandra some family heirlooms–obviously, an attempt to buy her off. At the same time, he relates that Jim’s safe deposit box confirms everything she said. Finally, he actually wants to take her to the lab. In fact, he’s tuning up his charm-school fake-sincerity bit. There appears to be nothing odd in the lab. She asks him about Laidell and the rest of his loyal staff. She wants to go riding. Kind of risky, is the horse trusty?

No, she gets thrown, but finds out about another secret place, a lodge. Hopping a fence, she goes on in the woods, then: it’s Jim. He says he’s had an “accident” and Laidell “takes care” of him. He doesn’t recognize her at first. Laidell is close by. Apparently, the prescription alluded to earlier was for Jim’s sleeping pills. Sandra’s able to sneak away, back to the mansion.

The Senator’s limo is there. She wants to stick around; Mark wants her to go, but gives in. She thinks she sees Jim outside, but it’s Mark. Full disclosure time: Jim and Julie’s father had died in an asylum…ok, but Jim has murdered someone, so he’s been held there in lieu of being locked up. Um, but…a few questions, please.

Fortunately, Jim shows up to clear things. He knocks Mark down–it appears Jim really is deranged. He thinks Sandra’s in love with Mark, and he wants to split with her. She realizes that Mark was right. Jim, scuffling with Mark, simplifies things by falling to his death. Now she’s on the square with Mark. The end, I think.

The ending is like a whole other movie, with its own sort of subplot. That’s good, because this short movie seemed to take forever to get from Point A to Point B. Luckily, Points C through Z showed up in time for a grand denouement. The main problem with Cry Wolf is that (ending aside) everything is much too obvious. Once we find out about the lab, it’s pretty obvious that Mark has either turned his nephew into a chicken, or killed him.

Ok, neither of those things happened–but clearly the lab is the focus of the main plot. It just occurred to me though, that, since Mark was right, and nothing very weird went on there, it’s pretty much a red herring. Well, Mark had to develop “the compound” there; but, even so, that could at the worst be a quack medication. Since, apparently, nothing happened to Jim other than his becoming, in effect, an unwilling hermit, Mark hasn’t harmed him.

Julie’s death doesn’t incriminate Mark either. The real shocker is that Jim turns out to be the bad guy. That’s cool. It kind of begs the question, though, that Sandra just might’ve known something was off about him. It’s never explained, having only been married a short time, how or why he disappeared in the first place. That is, he was having a psychotic episode in Canada; where was she? What was she doing?

One thing that I incorrectly anticipated was that Mark would say he’d faked Jim’s death so that Jim could get out from under the murder rap. As it turns out, I just don’t see the point of having Jim dead. Since he’s completely under Mark’s thumb, I would think Mark would have control of Jim’s assets too. Even if Jim has to be dead for Mark to benefit monetarily, there’s still the complication that Sandra figures into it. If we accept the conceit that the marriage is ‘secret’ (again, anyone in 1947 could access records, especially someone as connected as a senator’s brother), then we need to know more about Sandra.

If she had a shady or secret past–maybe if it were shown or at least implied that she too was mentally imbalanced–then some of the other parts of the plot would add up better. The implications of the illogical plot forces the characters to act falsely: Sandra is certainly inquisitive, but acts as her own detective, as though she were on a desert island; Mark is only occasionally not wooden, and Jim is all over the place.

Of course, Jim is supposed to be nuts. But he reacts differently in each of his scenes–disoriented, has amnesia, pleading, threatening, calm, detached. Again, this could be explicable if it were determined what “the compound” was, or what effect, if any, it might’ve had on him. Either the lab needs more horror trappings where dark deeds did take place, Sandra needs to have more history, or there should be some (official) pressure on Mark to build up some tension.

What we end up with is a movie having an ending that doesn’t fit the premise, and a plot that unravels quietly with nothing to pull it together. This is entertaining, but a bit unsatisfying.

Secret Of The Blue Room, 1933.

******* 7.0

Accent On Blue

Entertaining old dark house murder mystery. The premise is unique, and the plot unfolds nicely. The house, Helldorf castle, is really the star, with its forbidden room, secret passageways, suits of armor, a gargoyle here and there, and a pond below the infamous blue room.

Lionel Atwill doesn’t have much to do here; the three suitors for Gloria Stuart’s affections aren’t much as characters, with the exception of Walter, who’s really too old for her anyway. To slightly rake over the coals brought to light by other reviewers, there’s not really any memorable performances, the plot hints at events that aren’t resolved, and the setting itself is ambiguous.

There’s only one murder that’s accounted for, the one Thomas confesses to. The Commissioner could at least ask Thomas about the earlier victims, or Atwill’s Van Helldorf could mention that the Commissioner might reopen those unresolved cases. That Thomas would kill to get Irene is plausible; but there was something strange about how the secret passageway denouement was set up.

We see Walter shoot his dummy, apparently in an attempt to flush out the real killer. But when he enters the blue room, he immediately finds the entrance to the secret passageway, and descends the gothic innards of the castle. Apparently, Walter has deduced that the killer hangs out down there. But if he knew that much, why wait to confront the killer? Why not get some of the policeman to help? He almost gets himself killed; his shot only serves to warn Thomas. Maybe the police put the dummy there without telling Walter, so at first he was fooled and thought it was the killer. Even though I watched that scene twice, I’m sure I still missed something.

When Irene’s real father shows, a lot of possibilities open up: for a bit I thought she might be the killer. Nothing wrong with a dead-end spur of the plot. But, even if the mysterious father doesn’t figure in the plot resolution, the revelation of his identity was an interesting device that deserved more exploration.

As cool as the castle looks, both inside and out, just where is it? Looks too old to be in the U.S. The castle’s and family’s name suggest Germany, or, we could just compromise and say England. That in itself isn’t such a big deal, but when some characters have American accents, others have English accents, and there’s other accents as well, it becomes a distraction.

There were other distractions that worked. The hyper maid stirred things up nicely. The cat poking around in the blue room, as well as the butler’s sudden entrance in the dining room were well-timed bits that kept everyone on edge.

Secret of the Blue Room entertains, but to be more enjoyable it needs a few more rooms.

The Thirteenth Chair, 1929.

*****5.0

Featuring “Good Show!” with “Rotter!”, “Beastly”, and “By Jove”

Ye olde British mystery. With a colonial slant, in India; and the interesting device of a seance to ferret out the murderer. Ironically, another murder occurs during the seance. Margaret Wycherly is the medium Rosalie LaGrange. She turns detective in an attempt to defend her daughter Helen ‘Nell’ O’Neill (Leila Hyams) in the investigation of Spencer Lee’s death; Bela Lugosi, in an early role, plays Inspector Delzante. The middle version of three movies of this title (the others in 1920 and 1937). An early talkie; also, originally a play, so it’s pretty stagey,

Edward is first on the scene after Spencer’s death–the outline of the body is still on the floor, with a pool of blood. The servants aren’t too happy about Edward barging in. “I’m positive I can identity the woman who killed Spencer Lee” he says to the police. Apparently, Lee “was a bit of a rotter.” Richard (Conrad Nagel) is Nell’s beau, Spencer was his friend. Sir Roscoe Crosby (Holmes Herbert) is Richard’s father. Mary Eastwood (Helen Millard) and Helen Trent (Moon Carroll) are also friends. Anyway, Mme. LaGrange’s idea is to use a seance to ask Spencer’s spirit to point out the killer.

She shows up, telling little jokes. Cunningly, she lets on how she picks up clues about people to tell fortunes. She gets right down to business…at faking spirit rapping. Then she raises a table off the floor. Edward wants to get on with the seance. We adjourn to another room. There’s so many instructions that this could be a documentary on spiritualism.

In the dark, screams. Lights on, more arrangements. Lights off: laughter, squeeky voices “the swimming pool” (that’s supposedly Spencer, who had to be rescued from drowning). The spirit is asked who killed Spencer. No real answer, but Edward is stabbed, just like Spencer was. Suddenly, Delzante is on the scene. “That (Edward’s murder) places all of you…under suspicion.” Brilliant deduction. He wants them to sit in the circle again, just as they were.

Now they’re arguing about who was sitting where. Delzante surmises that Edward, had he not been killed, would’ve elicited from the spirit the name of Spencer’s murderer. It make sense that the same person killed both guys. Delzante thinks that LaGrange was the murderer. Or, maybe Nell. Naturally, mom protects daughter.

Well, we do learn that there’s fingerprints on a cup from Spencer’s room; Nell admits that she’d been there. Meanwhile, the guests are still stuck in the room, per Delzante’s order, “It’s a beastly outrage!” someone says. Good, we need more beastly stuff. Aha, a ruse…no fingerprints, but at least we have dirt on Nell. Did she know Spencer?

So, Nell relates that the ‘other Helen,’ Helen Trent, had a bit of a liason with Spencer before she was married. Nell was bailing Helen Trent out of an embarrassing situation, even possible blackmail, by recovering their correspondence. Problem is, Helen #2 denies this; she admits that Spencer wanted to marry her, but there were no letters, and no secret mission undertaken by Nell on her behalf.

Delzante gives LaGrange ten minutes to come up with something. Spirit knocking/rapping to the rescue. Then she sees the knife embedded in the ceiling. “What you’re asking me to do is insanity!” He says to her plea for another seance. Edward’s body shows up, in a chair. “The innocent have need have no fear” says LaGrange. Mary’s husband chimes in with “I say! I say! We’re not all going to sit in the dark with that (the corpse), are we?!”

They hear Edward’s voice. Unable to take the tension, Mary blurts out that she did it. She’d had an affair with Spencer; but got jealous of Nell, and so killed Spencer, and then Edward. Helen lets on that she lied about the letters, etc. The end. In some ways the denouement is the best part of this; it doesn’t help much that Mary didn’t figure much in the plot until the very end, but at least she had a reason to occupy a chair.

The Thirteenth Chair really doesn’t do much with its novel premise. The seance stuff might as well happen off-camera, as we can’t see much of anything. Edward’s sudden appearance after his death is the most dramatic incident in the movie, it’s pretty much the only dramatic thing too. Given that we’re stuck for all but a few moments in one of two rooms, there has to be more to latch onto than “by Jove” this and that.

Wycherly and Lugosi carried the movie; her role is interesting, a con who desperately wants to believe that she’s genuine. Lugosi, always a bit overbearing, is unexpectedly convincing as a cop. Despite his character’s apparent cold objectivity, he changes his mind as often as he dismisses statements that don’t fit a perceived agenda. All of the hoary exclamations from the other characters can be taken in stride as a sort of a stand-in for the audience’s reaction. In short, the actors suit their roles: the name Cyril Chadwick has got to be the absolute distillation of Englishness.

I would’ve liked to have seen more development of the seance motif. This stuff was really the heart of the movie, bringing both murders together. Maybe Mme. LaGrange gets more out of the spirits–since the set-up is that she’s a phony–more believable other-worldly stuff would be all the more surprising. Finally, just stick this back in an Old Dark House in England. Setting this in India adds nothing. Clearly, the outer setting here is meaningless. Unless it’s used as a handy backdrop that could give us dark-and-stormy-nights, heightening the atmosphere for the goings-on inside.

The Man Who Wouldn’t Die, 1942.

********8.0

Murder mystery, old dark house-style, which is the best type of setting for this genre. P.I. Michael Shayne (Lloyd Nolan) turns up to solve a murder puzzle at the Wolff’s (dad, Dudley–Paul Harvey, daughter Catherine/Kay–Marjorie Weaver, and her step-mother Anna–Helene Reynolds). Alfred (Robert Emmett Keane) is Dudley’s Secretary; Dr. Haggard (Henry Wilcoxin) his friend, Phillips (Billy Bevan) is the butler, Roger (Richard Derr) is Catherine’s husband. Also, there’s Police chief Meek (Olin Howland).

Looks like a body stuffed in the back of a woody wagon, with Anna looking on. Three guys (Dudley, Haggard, and Alfred) bury it in the woods, but someone’s watching. Kay shows up at the house. Now, as the trio comes back, the weather whips up. Catherine announces her marriage “What’s this idiot’s name!” demands dad–it’s Roger.

Aha! a dark figure with glowing eyes appears in Kay’s room and shoots at her. Back at the gravesite, it’s dug up, no body “You told me he was dead!” Dudley exclaims. Michael shows up, skeptical about her ‘ghost’ story’. Cleverly, Mike agrees to pose as Roger, as her dad can’t stand cops, investigators, etc. She introduces Mike/Roger to a very truculent Dad. The dialogue is really snappy: Dudley to Mike “Don’t call me dad!” Mike: “Ok, Pops”.

Mike finds the bulletin Kay’s room. She tells Mike about Haggard’s secret lab in the basement. Mike: “No electric trains, huh?” Haggard has been working on a fountain-of-youth deal. But Mike almost gets electrocuted in a chair device. Confronting Haggard, and then Dudley with the bullet, we get the explanation that the intruder must’ve been a blackmailer.

That night, guess who shows up? Glowing eyes guy; skulking around a bit, he kills Haggard, and gets away. So, they summon the police. But Chief Meeks is a bit fuddy-duddy. While the family’s being interviewed, the burglar alarm goes off. Mike dims the lights, and a figure is seen in the window. He gets away in Meek’s car, but Mike and Meeks give chase in Mike’s coupe.

It’s really an excellent chase scene, as both cars are sliding all over the dirt roads. Eventually, the ‘ghost’ goes off the road, and looks dead. Next scene Mike is chatting up an old magician friend; he’s curious about the so-called ‘buried alive’ act. That is, a magician in a trance-like state can fake death. Which would explain the initial missing body episode. That magician would be Zorah Bey (Le Roy Mason). Mike’s hunch proves correct: the body from the wrecked car goes missing from the morgue.

At this point, Kate’s real husband shows up at the mansion; things twist up even more when Mike gets back there. Everyone but Kay is mad at him, but Dudley and Anna consult with him, as they realize Mike suspects or links them in the murder. Dudley reveals that the buried guy was a blackmailer, and thought he accidentally killed him. Thus the burial; and, since Mike reveals Bey’s identity, it also explains the missing corpse.

The chief goes back to talk to Dudley, but is sort of shooed away. Now it’s an out-and-out dark and stormy night; the gunman, Bey, pops into Anna’s room intending to kill her, but Mike is right behind him, and kills Bey. The denouement shows that Bey was her ex-husband who was presumed dead. Of course, he had been blackmailing her. Faking his death would compromise Dudley, and allow the blackmailing to continue. But, Anna’s complete deal is that she’s been having an affair with Haggard. Bey realizes that she’s double-crossed him, and seeks revenge. Thus the murder of Haggard, and the attempted murder of Anna (the shot at Kay was an error).

That’s a lot to wade through in an hour. But, although the fake death stuff (especially from the car wreck) strains credulity, it does add up. The performances are good all around, especially Nolan’s. Some of his quips are just outstanding. Howland is maybe a touch to goofy for a cop, but his comment on the cook was priceless. Weaver is great too; she has a tough role, as she has to fake being Nolan’s wife for most of the movie. The characters are just so likeable. The only one we don’t get a read on is Bey’s; he has no lines at all. Maybe that’s ok, as he maintains a straight menacing role amongst several less-than-serious characters.

Very entertaining stuff. It’s worth watching for the dialogue alone.

Murder At Midnight, 1931.

***** 5.0

Nice beginning, a murder as a charade–that’s something interesting. A simulated/real murder theme has been done in different guises: in a play, a movie, on TV, now as part of a game. And, that’s just to start things off. By the time the police arrive, there’s another murder.

It seems that the second victim, Jim Kennedy (Kenneth Thomson) had just changed his will earlier that day, disinheriting his wife Esme (Aileen Pringle). The chief suspects in both murders are Millie, a maid (Alice White), Walter (Leslie Fenton) and Esme (both of whom lost out from the change in the will), and Phillip (Hale Hamilton). Events at once get simpler and more complicated, as Millie turns up dead.

It’s kind of odd to experience a movie without music; can’t expect much technology for 1931. Still, in a mystery, music can thicken the atmosphere. In Midnight Murder. there’s an appropriate old dark house, some silhouetted figures on walls here and there, even a skull on a desk. But what atmosphere does lurk about is shredded by the Inspector’s (Robert Elliot’s) presence. When he says anything, it’s like words. This guy’s delivery is so wooden, given in such a studied monotone, that you wish the movie weren’t a talkie after all.

In a murder mystery, the character of the policeman/detective is a key role. Since the whole point of a murder mystery is to find out who’s the killer, we want the guy representing reason and order (and therefore society in general) to be a substantial presence. There’s cop portrayals that are blunt, annoying, fastidious, paternalistic, moody, wise-cracking, loopy, and any combination of these traits. Just don’t have a dull cop. There’s even one very clever ’30s murder mystery (I’ll figure out which title, hopefully) in which the ‘police detective’ turns out to be a guy who escaped from an asylum. Now, that works.

I forgot that we’re up to four murders now, as the butler gets it next. “This isn’t a murder case, it’s an epidemic” remarks the Inspector. Esme’s Aunt Julia (Clara Bendick) finds Jim’s will and an incriminating letter. Hmm. So Phillip was having an affair with Esme. Phillip keels over, as the phone he was on was booby-trapped. But he had rigged it up himself. He intended to fake a call that would kill the Inspector (due to the receiver triggering a deadly device into the listener’s ear–a bullet?).

But, the Inspector, picking up the receiver, feels that it’s been tampered with, and hands it to Phillip. Phillip can’t not ‘take the call’ without incriminating himself, so he gambles and takes it. He loses. He was the murderer. I had to watch this scene a couple of times to get it (more or less).

It’s plausible that Phillip would gamble on the pretend call because the device hadn’t worked on Julia, who had just ‘answered’ the first fake call before the Inspector arrived. She was his real target anyway, as he gains nothing by killing the Inspector. What’s still bugging me is–why not show hat Phillip puts in the receiver–I’m saying it’s a bullet both because there’s bullets laying about here and there; plus I suppose it’s not too far-fetched that the vibration in the receiver’s ear piece could set the bullet off.

Murder At Midnight starts and ends well, but pretty much does a Titanic-like sinking in the long middle part. The Inspector’s character was only the most notable of many less-than-strong performances. It was hard to differentiate the characters, their roles, and even their motives. No one was really interesting here. The script was actually good, and there’s more than a few good lines.

The Ghoul, 1933.

********* 9.0

An old dark house, a romance, a mystery involving a miraculous gemstone, and a ghoul. That is, Boris Karloff comes back to life to ensure that this jewelry isn’t falling into the wrong hands.

Mahmoud (D.A. Clarke-Smith) enters Dragore’s (Harold Huth’s) house threatening him with a knife; where’s the sacred stone? Well he sold it to Professor Morlant (Karloff). But that worthy is dying. The Parson comes calling, but Laing (Ernest Thesiger) warns him off. Meanwhile, Broughton (Cedric Hardwicke) goes over his client’s accounts. Laing looks in on his master. Morlant tells Laing to keep an eye on Broughton. He then tells the butler how he will invoke the jewel’s power to achieve immortality.

"When the full moon strikes the door of my tomb, I will come back...you hear?". That’s got a nice ring to it. The doctor looks in on Morlant just now; but the old boy’s giving up the ghost, so to speak. Onto the funeral procession. Anyway, in the crypt, Laing slips the jewel out of corpse’s hand. Someone’s watching from the bushes. Ralph (Anthony Bushell) goes to see Broughton; the solicitor tells him than his uncle basically has no estate.

Meanwhile, his cousin, Betty (Dorothy Hyson) talks with Kaney (Kathleen Harrison) about the notification of her uncle’s death. Betty thinks there’s something in it for her. She doesn’t know what, though. Broughton skulks around in the street, stealing Betty’s purse which has a mysterious note in it. Oh-oh, there’s a full moon. Someone’s at the crypt attempting to blast the door open. Inside, Broughton goes through Morlant’s things. Betsy, Ralph, and Kaney arrive, "what a horrible house!" Betty says, as Broughton lets them in. Outside, Dragore and Mahmoud (or is it Dragore’s chaffeur?) drive up.

Dragore introduces himself, Mahmoud looms in the bushes again. The new guest want to see Morlant’s tomb. Great funny bit between the Parson and Broughton--Parson: "We’re just ships passing in the night..." Broughton: "before you pass, do you want a drink?" Laing approaches the tomb, apprehensive. Sure enough, Morlant shrugs off the coffin lid just as the moon escapes from behind clouds. He’s a heck of a hideous ghoul as he emerges from the crypt.

The Ghoul takes down the chaffeur, and approaches the house. Kaney is smitten with Dragore, but they’re interrupted as a deranged Laing pops in. Laing attempts to pray; but our Ghoul literally crashes in. It seems that Laing knows that Betty has the jewel, so Morlant lets him go when Laing clues him in. Wisely, Ralph figures that Laing and Morlant are trying "to scare us out of the house". Ok, but that would mean that Morlant never died.

The two cousins go to the crypt to find out what they can. Betty collapses when she sees her dead uncle. Kaney’s hysterical. Although Ralph accuses Broughton of deceiving them, Broughton turns the tables by suggesting that Betty knows that her uncle has returned. Laing shows up, and, enigmatically, tells the couple that Henry’s not a ghost. Well, he’s plenty weird, carving an Egyptian symbol on his chest in front of the statue of a god. Ralph and Betty look on while The Ghoul falls dead.

We see a human hand emerge from an opening in the statue. After Morlant’s killed, the Parson slinks out from behind it. Aha! He’s the criminal mastermind. Dragore and Broughton know the Kaney has the jewel, but she threatens to fix them by jumping down a well. Now we realize that it was the Parson who’d rigged the crypt door; an errant torch falls near it, eventually igniting the charge.

So, the Parson is assumed dead by the blast, Morlant indeed hadn’t died the first time, but was in a cataleptic state, Ralph and Betty escape intact, and the police nab Broughton and Dragore. The end.

This is about as good as it gets in the wonderful ’30s British mystery realm. For one thing, only near the very end do we see that there’s really nothing supernatural, but the seed of doubt has already been planted. So, there’s a double dose of suspense: is Morlant really a ghoul?, and, if not, what’s going on and with whom? (Technically, a ghoul is simply a graverobber, not a supernatural being, but some poetic license works ok here).

Obviously, the gem stone is behind all of this, supernatural or not. One odd thing is that it’s not always clear who has it. I’m not sure if I just wasn’t paying attention, or this bit is intentionally vague.

The Parson successfully surprises us; he had just sort of been there before he shows his hand. The rigged-up crypt door is a great device that fits smoothly with the plot. The comic aspect is just lively enough not to change the overall tone--some of the quips are great. On the other hand, Kanye/Dragore flirtation seems very contrived, not to mention stereotypical.

Although the characters are types, they really inhabit their roles naturally and convincingly. That leads to the best aspect of The Ghoul--the atmosphere is so well-imagined and presented, Karloff and Thesiger are so relentlessly creepy, that The Ghoul succeeds as a pretyy good horror movie even though it really isn’t trying for that.

The house is simply gothic heaven, the crypt would do any mummy proud, and there’s not a shadow or image that lets us out of the underworld. Karloff’s makeup is better than in some of his more overt horror roles. At the same time, we’re drawn in by the actual plot.

Charming and sophisticated at the same time, The Ghoul is definitely not to be missed.

Before Dawn, 1933.

******* 7.0

Almost a ghost?

Sounds like a title for a modern-day vampire movie, but, actually, this is a pretty juice slice of the ’30s old dark house recipe. As in a million bucks in gold hidden in a mansion by a dead gangster. The police enlist the service of a father-daughter clairvoyant team to locate the loot, while the gangster’s doctor has his own cunning plan.

Featuring Warner Oland, Stuart Erwin, Dorothy Wilson, Dudley Digges, Gertrude Hoffman, Oscar Apfel, Frank Reicher, and June Darwell.

We start with Dr. Paul Cornelius (Oland) visiting Joe (Reicher) in the hospital. Joe tells him about the money; "it’s all yours" if Paul will give him an injection to ease his pain. At the mansion, we see two elderly women , Mrs. Marble (Darwell) and her housekeeper Mattie (Hoffman) reading that Joe’s died. "It’s ours now...now he’s dead, and we’re free!" Says Marble. "Curse or no curse!" A ghostly face comes out of the darkness, down the stairs. Marble falls.

We segue to Mlle. Mystera, that is Patricia’s (Wilson) ’vocational guidance’ place. She’s in the midst of an "astral plane" reading. Her dad, Horace (Digges) waits outside. Next thing we know, there’s a police raid (the ’customer’ was a detective working undercover, Dwight Wilson--Erwin); Horace pleads to the Chief Inspector (Apfel) that he can help the police. Patricia gives Dwight an impromptu reading, which proves very accurate.

"This is the battiest thing I ever let myself in for!" Says the Inspector, who, thanks to Dwight’s urging, agrees to let Patricia off if she works for the police. So, Patricia starta in on their case right in the inspector’s office--doesn’t go so well at first, but she has predicted a murder that just happened. "All those gyp artists work with the move!" insists the Inspector. Dwight suggests another case: "How about that old housekeeper, and that nutty ghost story?"

Meaning Mattie and Mrs. Marble. Apparently, Mrs. Marble has died from her fall. Sure enough, Patricia proceeds to ’see’ a lot about that house. Next, thankfully, we’re at Marbles house. "There’s an evil spirit in this house." Patricia disagrees; I bet it’s actually Dr. Paul. Yep, he’s at the door. Finally, we’ve got the group of usual suspects gathered in the drawing room of the old place. It’s almost half way into the movie’s run time.

Anyway, the doc relates the whole story about Joe’s death-bed confession: the money’s in the Marble house because the old woman was his wife. "We suspect murder, but we can’t prove it" says the Inspector to the doc. That worthy comes up with a cunning plan--that he should stay in the house under the pretext of studying the psychics. Patricia doesn’t want to hang around, but she perks up when Dwight shows up.

He’s got a search warrant for the money, which is obviously stolen mob money. Strangely, Cornelius tells Mattie that he knows who killed Mrs. Marble. "I’m convinced" Horace observes, "that she knows where the money is." It sounds as though Cornelius and Horace might come to some sort of arrangement concerning the money.

It’s possible that Cornelius knows, or thought he knew where the money was, because of Joe’s confession--which we didn’t hear. Horace tries to talk his daughter into using her skills to find the money: she refuses. Dwight takes a short cut to their room. Next we see someone sneak up on Mattie’s bed: the ’ghost’ of Joe warning her to lay off the money. The others converge on her.

Since she is afraid of the ghost, she won’t tell the others about the money. Patricia insists that it wasn’t Joe at all. The only one not present who could be pretending to be the ghost is Mrs. Marble, who’s inconveniently dead. Or is she? Horace wants to talk to Dwight about Cornelius, but the cop has to leave. Now, the doc skulks into Mattie’s room. He mentions a secret room.

Horace overhears this, and finds the entrance. Well, first thing he sees is the ’ghost’s’ mask. Cornelius hears some knocking from the corridor; it’s actually Horace investigating a hiding place. He surprises Horace, and takes his gun away. Patricia gets antsy and finds Cornelius, but doesn’t suspect anything of him. "Where’s my father?!" He lays a trap for her, telling her that dad’s down stairs. He now tells her that it’s Mattie who’s up to something.

He tells her that he’s going to give the old bat an injection. Meanwhile, thanks to Patricia’s skills, she sees her father in in acrystal-ball like glass lamp. We find out that the money is in a certain place in the cellar; well, we’ll see. Mattie has to come up with something to tell the menacing Cornelius. He says he’s killed Horace. Indeed, once in the secret passageway, they see the body, then get to the cellar.

In a weird way, it seems that now Mattie and Cornelius are in cahoots--no, she was trying to lure him into a deep open well. Turning the tables, he chucks her in. Patricia shows up. Thinking fast, Cornelius tells her that Mattie killed her father, and then tries to lure her into the deadly well. Dwight makes it back; hears her screams, and, with reinforcement and attempts to rescue her.

Dwight finally gets at at Cornelius, who, unsurprisingly, tumbles into the well. Now that all’s well, were comfy back at the inspector’s office. "What I want to know is, who gets the reward?" he asks. He has Patricia sign a waiver, which is in fact a marriage license for her and Dwight. That a boss who knows how to play wing-man. The end.

This is nicely atmospheric, and the mansion certainly does all it can to help along the ghostly crime mystery. Once things start happening there, it gets interesting. Except for a couple of things: it’s obvious that Oland’s character is the bad guy; an undead Mrs. Marble would be the only other possibility, and that would change too much other stuff to work; and, given that, the mystery really doesn’t get going until we’re well into the movie.

Nonetheless this is an enjoyable way to spend an hour. The performances are really quite good. Ironically, Paticia, who has maybe the shadiest credentials, is the only one (other than the cops) who isn’t acting suspicious. she’s so above-board the only will accept the reward under the wink-wink sanction of sharing it with Dwight, her newly betrothed. The first part is somewhat redeemed by the quips at the police station coming from O’Hara.

Not a million bucks worth here, but Before Dawn will get the pot boiling.

Next Chapter: Mystery: Chillers, Thrillers, and Psychos