Director: Benjamin
Stoloff
Year: 1933
Rating: 5.0
This B film from Columbia is just weird enough to pass muster. In its sparse running time of 61-minutes, it has more murders than I could keep track of. It mixes up a murderer, a serial killer, a medium, a man buried alive, an old dark creepy house and Bela Lugosi in Hindi dress. Everyone seems to spend their time peeking out of their doorway to see who is passing by. It is sad seeing Lugosi only two years after Dracula appearing in a film like this. The thing is he didn't get paid much for Dracula and he took work anywhere he could find it. A pattern that lasted all his life. He deserved better, but then so does everyone in this film.
A mad man dressed like a tramp with bad teeth is killing everyone he comes across with no particular pattern or preference. A couple necking in their car out in the woods are the first in the film to get it - but the police mention that there have been twelve already. That is a busy serial killer. He turns his attention to the Rhinehart family in their estate. It is a very strange household. The father is Richard Rhinehart (Tully Marshall) who lives with his daughter Mary, her fiancé Arthur (George Meeker), the servant Degar (Lugosi) who creeps around and his wife Sika who goes into trances and can predict the future and communicate with the dead. There is also the needed comic relief from the black chauffer (Oscar Smith) who stutters and trembles throughout. Most annoying though is the fast-talking nosy reporter who tries to romance Mary though he knows she is engaged and keeps kissing her. Pre-code so they could get away with it. Played by Wallace Ford with his usual lack of finesse.
The fiancé Arthur claims that he has invented a serum that will make him appear to be dead but he is actually alive and he will bury himself in the ground for eight hours and be alive when they wake him up with an anti-serum. He invites experts to witness this. Then the murders begin. A will is opened that is set up so that if any of the heirs dies, their share will be split among the survivors. We have been here before. We know what that means. More murders! So, do we have one or two killers knocking them off?
Sally Blane plays Mary. She was the sister of Loretta Young and Polly Ann Young. Loretta of course became the most famous of the three, but Blane had a solid career and Polly less so but still was in about 40 films - her last one co-starring with Bela in Invisible Ghosts. Both of the sisters married well and left the industry - Sally to director Norman Foster. the three of them appeared together in The Story of Alexander Graham Bell. Lugosi is always great to watch and his delivery is dead-pan dead. "Sir here is the newspaper", "There is nothing in the paper I want to know", "Nothing but murder".
Year: 1933
Rating: 5.0
This B film from Columbia is just weird enough to pass muster. In its sparse running time of 61-minutes, it has more murders than I could keep track of. It mixes up a murderer, a serial killer, a medium, a man buried alive, an old dark creepy house and Bela Lugosi in Hindi dress. Everyone seems to spend their time peeking out of their doorway to see who is passing by. It is sad seeing Lugosi only two years after Dracula appearing in a film like this. The thing is he didn't get paid much for Dracula and he took work anywhere he could find it. A pattern that lasted all his life. He deserved better, but then so does everyone in this film.
A mad man dressed like a tramp with bad teeth is killing everyone he comes across with no particular pattern or preference. A couple necking in their car out in the woods are the first in the film to get it - but the police mention that there have been twelve already. That is a busy serial killer. He turns his attention to the Rhinehart family in their estate. It is a very strange household. The father is Richard Rhinehart (Tully Marshall) who lives with his daughter Mary, her fiancé Arthur (George Meeker), the servant Degar (Lugosi) who creeps around and his wife Sika who goes into trances and can predict the future and communicate with the dead. There is also the needed comic relief from the black chauffer (Oscar Smith) who stutters and trembles throughout. Most annoying though is the fast-talking nosy reporter who tries to romance Mary though he knows she is engaged and keeps kissing her. Pre-code so they could get away with it. Played by Wallace Ford with his usual lack of finesse.
The fiancé Arthur claims that he has invented a serum that will make him appear to be dead but he is actually alive and he will bury himself in the ground for eight hours and be alive when they wake him up with an anti-serum. He invites experts to witness this. Then the murders begin. A will is opened that is set up so that if any of the heirs dies, their share will be split among the survivors. We have been here before. We know what that means. More murders! So, do we have one or two killers knocking them off?
Sally Blane plays Mary. She was the sister of Loretta Young and Polly Ann Young. Loretta of course became the most famous of the three, but Blane had a solid career and Polly less so but still was in about 40 films - her last one co-starring with Bela in Invisible Ghosts. Both of the sisters married well and left the industry - Sally to director Norman Foster. the three of them appeared together in The Story of Alexander Graham Bell. Lugosi is always great to watch and his delivery is dead-pan dead. "Sir here is the newspaper", "There is nothing in the paper I want to know", "Nothing but murder".