The Secret of the Blue Room
                                                                                                               
Director: Kurt Neumann
Year: 1933
Rating: 5.5
Still early days for Universal horror, but the main classics - Dracula, Frankenstein and The Mummy along with The Old Dark House and Murders in the Rue Morgue - had all been released and been successful. The Secret of the Blue Room was definitely a step down with a budget of only $68,000. And though marketed as a horror film, it is much more a locked room murder mystery. In a murky castle with a history of unexplained deaths. It only runs 65 minutes but with a cast that became well-known in the coming years.



First as the father and owner of the castle is Lionel Atwill in his first appearance of many in Universal horror films to come. His daughter is played by Gloria Stuart who had been in The Old Dark House but is probably most famous for The Titanic many years later. That and her writing on the pleasure of masturbation. One of the three house guests is portrayed by Paul Lukas who had moved from Hungary to America in 1927 and had a fine career playing both heroes and villains. And finally, there is Edward Arnold as the top policeman. He is one of my favorite actors of the 1930s, always commanding.



It is Irene's (Stuart) birthday, and her father (Atwill) has invited three of her friends over. All in love with her. In perhaps the creepiest scene in the film, she gives all three solid kisses on the mouth. And dad also. Ugh. Over brandies and cigars, the father tells them of the infamous Blue Room at the top of the stairs. Three people who slept there did not wake up the next day. The youngest of the suitors sees this as his chance to impress Irene and volunteers to sleep in the room. In the morning he is missing. For such a small budget, director Kurt Neumann, who had come to America from Germany to initially direct German versions of American films, creates a nice bit of uneasy atmosphere. But he quickly moved to directing B films; later on, a few of the RKO Tarzan films and most famously The Fly in 1958. Universal produced two later versions of the film; The Missing Guest in 1938 and Murder in the Blue Room in 1944.