The fourth of the Inner Sanctum Mysteries and once again the women are lined up in love with Lon Chaney Jr. The man with the personality of a hedgehog. This female attraction to him is the biggest mystery of these films. Can the head in the crystal ball answer that one. Wait. I think his distorted voice is coming in. He is the star of the series stupid. Ah. Now I get it.
This one brings together two devices that were really popular in the B films of the 30s and 40s - mind readers and wax museums. Mind readers must have been a big deal back then. The mind reader picking out audience members and telling them things like their social security number or who they slept with last night and of course wax museums which are always scary filled with at least one crazy man. Lon Chaney as the Great Gregor can't read minds himself but once he puts someone under his hypnotic trance that person can. His assistant in this is Maura (Evelyn Ankers, back from an earlier Inner Sanctum),
An audience member mocks him and so he brings him up and tries to put him in a trance but he says under his breath I wish I could kill you and the man drops dead. This fills him with so much guilt that he quits the business, breaks off with his love Maura and goes into a deep deep depression. Dead, dead, dead he mumbles to himself. Inspector Brant (the always reliably smarmy Douglass Dumbrille) becomes obsessed with finding Gregor guilty of something - all these films so far have obsessed cops who just seem to feel free to break into people's homes.
His friend played by Milburn Stone (Gunsmoke) says Gregor I know just the place for you to relax. A wax museum. Sure that should do it. There he finds two other women in love with him ( Tala Birell and a small plump piece of pastry, Elena Verdugo). And the crazy who makes the wax figures - Martin Kosleck. Sure this should cure you. Of your sanity. The odd thing about this film is that Gregor is legit - his subjects can read minds - sounds like the CIA could use him right about now. It kind of sludges along but has a good ending.
Strange Confession (1945) - 5.5
The fifth in the Inner Sanctum films.
All I can say is don't let the anti-vaxxers see this one. They will be, see this is proof that vaccines are dangerous, it wasn't tested long enough, that the pharmaceutical companies put profits above safety. Ok, the last one might be true. Of course, according to this film there were no government regulations or testing or oversight. The FDA has been around since the 1930's so hard to imagine that this vaccine passed any approval process. Ok - should not bring reality into an Inner Sanctum film but there are so many nuts out there spreading disinformation that I had to. Crazy times we live in. Glad these people were not around when I was growing up in the 50's and so many were coming down with polio. Ok. Stop Brian. On to the film.
Lon Chaney Jr plays a chemist in this one who works on wonder drugs. It begins with him leaving a home in the city at night holding a travelling bag tightly. Every time he sees a cop he slips into the shadows like a vampire hiding from daylight. Something bad is in that bag. He goes to a well-known lawyer and shows him what is inside the bag. He recoils in horror. Probably not dirty laundry. Or leftover Chinese food. Then he relates his confession. Meanwhile, the lawyer has told his man-servant to call the cops. Fortunately, the cops are a little slow getting there and the one-hour film is able to finish. Chaney worked in a lab along with his assistant Lloyd Bridges for a corporation headed by J. Carrol Naish. Naish is a mean-spirited man and cheap paying owner always pushing his employees to test faster, roll out new drugs faster.
Chaney refuses to and quits and gets a job in a pharmacy. His wife Brenda Joyce who is finally out of the jungle (five Tarzan films) and living with him and their son in a boarding house. She wants more and so when Naish offers to pay him more she gets him to enlist again. When Naish sees Joyce he nearly does a Tarzan yell. He sends Chaney and Bridges to South America for research. He does his own research as well - into how to seduce Joyce. Much of this is almost a domestic drama - will the wife fall for the oily charms of Naish, will Chaney discover a cure all, will the boy break another test tube in the bathroom, will they have turkey instead of lamb chops for Thanksgiving next year. But what is in that bag?
Pillow of Death (1945) - 6.0
Welcome to the last episode of the Inner Sanctum! Where you can be a murderer and not even know it. It could be me. It could be you. This series goes out on a high note I thought with a good mystery laced with a bit of the occult and a lot of murders. So many murders. Quiet murders with a pillow. Lon Chaney is back with his usual mournfully expressive face as if a smile is a foreign object to be feared. A woman is of course in love with him. It must have been in his contract. A lovely woman in the form of Brenda Joyce who had been in the previous Inner Sanctum. She doesn't have much more luck in this one. Tarzan was more her style. This keeps the killer on wraps for the film and maintains just enough creepiness with a dead body moving around and an old house full of hidden passageways, peeping toms and crabby old ladies. Not to mention the always present medium.
Chaney plays a lawyer with his secretary being Joyce. They are in love but he is married (who we never see to save one salary). Conveniently, he comes home one night to find her murdered and the police on hand. The police suspect him and Joyce's wealthy family does as well. But he has an alibi. Or does he. Death becomes a familiar figure as people go to sleep and don't wake up. One after another. The cop McCracken (Wilton Graff) with a voice slightly reminiscent of Vincent Price is at a loss. The medium (J. Edward Bromberg) holds a séance and Chaney's dead wife shows up like a morning after hangover and accuses her husband of killing her. Show them how you did it. But the dead can't really talk, can they. A bit of a surprise ending - not so much the killer but who ends up with who. A little perverse. And so we in the Inner Sanctum say goodbye till next time. Because murder is always standing right next to you.
