Old Dark Capsules IV: NIGHT OF TERROR, THE CROOKED CIRCLE, THE UNHOLY NIGHT, THE 13TH CHAIR, A STUDY IN SCARLET

An old dark house swirl of a thriller melding in some pre-slasher movie signatures, the Bela Lugosi-starring NIGHT OF TERROR is violent pre-code surprise. Long unavailable, it lives up to its reputation with a very pre-code string of murders by a knife-wielding madman, who grins impishly from the bushes and sets about murdering people all over a rolling spooky estate with a long knife, leaving his calling card - a headline of one of his killings - pinned to the back of each new body. From the opening scene of him crawling into a lover's lane convertible to stab a pair of necking lovers (top) it's clear this ain't your average 30s old dark house film, more like a 70s-80s slasher movie. Meanwhile, inside he main mansion, a dotty scientist (George Meeker) plans to test his new 'suspended animation' death-duplicating drug by burying himself alive for two days--mixing Houdini and medical science together under the watchful eye of an eminently murderable board of directors. His fiancee (Sally Blaine) a rather blindly doting heiress, is left to her own devices, or rather the paawings of sexually aggressive snoopy social-climbing reporter Wallace Ford. The kind of girl I like to call 'animus-dominated' she takes any suggestions from her gullible dad (Tully Marshall) as holy writ, and as he already funds Meeker's experiments, setting him set up his lab in the mansion, so he naturally encourages the marriage. She even tolerates Ford's relentless pushy pestering, as if she's totally willing to have a bunch of men control her sexual destiny rather than decide for herself (i.e. a Republican). Heirs gather for the reading of  the will after the murderer claims the father and Ford and the cops need to figure out if the mad murderer is killing heirs for someone's benefit (the will's split between heirs, so the fewer the inheritors the more $$).

As the mysterious servant Degar, top-billed Bela Lugosi plays the very first of his long line of red herring butlers. (Why he played so many over the years one can only guess but here at least his role is pretty central to the action, he's more than just a red herring and considering what a lean year 1933 was for him (in the doghouse at Universal for refusing to do Frankenstein), he seems glad to be there and manages some real malevolent around-the-corner stares as the heirs follow each other and everyone spies on everyone else through doorway cracks; Degar suspects something is up, and doesn't trust any of the greedy relatives to hold onto the serum that will wake up Meeker.

Meanwhile the mad killer's body count rises and the black chauffeur (Oscar Smith) alone is smart enough to want to skedaddle. Heirs to the murdered patriarch include a no-good brother and his cash-hungry wife who arrive out of nowhere and try to push everyone else out. Degar and his medium wife (Mary Frey) are also in for a share, though the scheming brother and wife don't think belong in the will and plan to contest it - better hurry up with that! Naturally there's a mysterious seance (always turn out all the lights in a big first floor open window and ajar door-filled room when a maniac who's already killed four people in that very house that very night is still at large, and a final act secret panel to a scary basement, and I'm sure there's at least one spooky skull or skeleton.

This rare Columbia B-movie gem was one I'd been looking for decades but it recently surfaced online and on Prime after never being on VHS, DVD or shown on TV during my rabid 'tape everything' phase. So here, at last, decades later, on Prime, finally, I actually saw it - a 35 year quest has ended. And it's surprisingly damn good, relatively speaking, and now I'm all aflutter since I've been wanting to see it forever.  What sets this apart from so many other old dark houses is the wild pace and the abundance of little macabre touches. Man, that lunatic really racks 'em up. The way no one seems quite prepared to alter their schedules, beef up security, turn on some lights, or lock their doors makes it all quite hilarious as the body count climbs to the double digits, and the killer's face regularly pops up at the windows yet Sally Blaine's sighting is dismissed as female nerves. Hmmmm. In a very strange cool ending the killer threatens the audience with death upon divulging the trick ending. It's weird how often that must have happened at the time - because we see that same thing at the end The Bat, and so many others. SPOILERS - believe it or not, underneath that weird make-up, the killer is gravel-voiced Edwin Maxwell (Dr. Emile Egelhoffer in His Girl Friday). 

My favorite early 30s Sherlock Holmes (pre-Rathbone) films, this has a lot going for it, including Anna May Wong and plenty of Limehouse fog. Some purists dislike Reginald Owen's Holmes --they say he's too meaty and slow (he played Watson opposite Collin Clive the year before)-- but I like him as he's more forceful and less dotty than say Arthur Wotner who played him in England at the time. A lot of actors--Rathbone included--tend to play up Holmes' nervous coke-head feyness, gamboling about with magnifying glass and hunting cap, slightly manic, Watson lagging along behind like a shopping bag-encumbered mother after her sugar-addled five year-old. But here the energy is a bit reversed - Watson is bouncing off the terrarium walls waiting for Holmes to make his move, to find some clue at the crime scene or spring into action against a scheming crook confederacy, and then, like a gecko falling off the glass on top of, and zapping a cricket with its tongue, all at once - zap! the cricket has disappeared, and Owen's Holmes has sprung into action.

When, for example, his study of a crime scene leads him from the murdered man's desk out to the front yard, Watson and Lestrade stand there watching him, patiently, as the scene plays out - they both seem resigned, reverent even - they're both used to playing second fiddle to this eccentric genius. Owen's is a Holmes with more than just a keen mind, this is a Holmes with gravitas. I like that he doesn't bother to explain all his observations like the first-grade show-off he is in some of the other films. When for example, Watson points out the resemblance of Thaddeus Merrydew's shoe size and cigar brand to those of the murderer they're hunting, Holmes just looks at him like a patient teacher guiding a student towards an already established insight: "Is that all you observed?" Holmes points out there were a hundred more details Watson missed, but then doesn't go into them. Still waters run deep with this Holmes; we come to appreciate the carefulness with which Owen keeps the water clear enough to see all the way into the purple depths. These give those gecko drop moments that extra snap, like when he counters Merrydew's feigning of ignorance over the withholding of a widow's trust, with a simple smile: "it won't do."

Another highlight is a local tavern out in the country, wherein a nice old Col. Blimp-style officer strolls in and--in real time--beguiles the local carriage driver with tons of whiskey before hiring him for a trip out to a for-sale mansion. Owen is so thoroughly buried in his role that we're not quite sure which of the two men is Holmes or if either man is at all, we just enjoy the idea of being kind of hard up and having a friendly stranger come and buy as a whole bottle. We watch in awe as Holmes deftly avoids drinking the bulk of his portions of the bottle, and how expertly he soon starts searching all over the mansion, locating secret panels, sending the maid out of the room after feigning a heart attack, and so forth. It's genius.


As in all the best Rathbone Holmes' (The Scarlet Claw in particular) great use is made of the foggy night atmosphere especially in and outside the gang's Limehouse hideout, where many a chase, spy, shot and a skulking suspicious walk occurs. The always worthwhile Anna May Wong has a small but memorable part one of the inheritors of the bloody tontine (based on some sequestered jointly stolen jewels); secret passages, and some good tough talk showdowns make up the rest. It all comes to a head very speedily as Holmes, Lestrade and a gang of detectives show up and they all stop off at the same pub for a quick one to bolster the blood before trundling off through the moors. Hail Britannia! The cavalry stopping for a quick round to bolster the blood before charging into action, that's something we wouldn't see again until Straw Dogs! Alan Mowbray is Lestrade; Alan Dinehart the odious Merrydew; Warburton Gamble a stalwart Watson. It was filmed at Tiffany Studios, one of those forgotten independent outfits. Clearly a labor of love for Owen, he produced and co-wrote the script with Robert Florey. It doesn't have anything to do with original Conan Doyle novel of the same name, but that's because Owen had optioned the title only, not the actual story! To be honest, you'd never know it as he did a bang-up job whipping something together that feels proper and correct in its Holmes-ishness and as I say, and Owen makes (in my opinion at least) a vital, grounded Holmes and that British atmosphere is so thick you may be forgiven for presuming it came from Gaumont.

This 'campy mystery' was the first film ever broadcast over TV airwaves, back in 1933! This is when it was still in theaters and there were only about six TVs in all of Los Angeles, but there it was - and that's a great way to imagine seeing it, since it's public domain and you're likely seeing it on Youtube or via some Alpha DVD (like the one I got). It's okay, these sorts of films play better when the terrible picture and staginess combine to almost give you a sense you're somehow not meant to see it at all- that the atmospheric conditions were good enough you picked up a strange channel from Illuminati-style crime organization from far away.  It's short but well-crafted, crammed with more passageways, undercover sneaking, skeletons, red herring, trap doors, backyard crypts, and enigmatic stares than old dark house films twice its length or age. Even the comic relief isn't as bad as usual (I'll take James Gleeson's "oh a wise guy, eh?" traffic cop grimacing over Wallace Ford's pushy blarney any day).

The story centers around 'Melody Manner', a great creepy split-level haunted-ish mansion squatted in by a rogues gallery of kooks, squatters, mysterious violin sounds (gh-gh-gh-ghosts!), and killers hang out amidst its labyrinth of secret passageways, spooky attics, and backyard graveyards with coffin chutes down to basement trap doors. There are some genius touches of the sort I haven't seen until the more recent Good Time (like a burglar forcing the homeowner he's holding at gunpoint to change clothes with him, before the cops arrive) and at its evil center, an occult society of masked criminals who  draw cards to see who does each murder "in a manner already prescribed" in a way reminiscent of Robert Louis Stevenson's "Suicide Club," (1)  Consisting of several men and one woman, they meet wearing black hoods to conceal their identities from each other, and end each meeting with a secret chant, "the traitors to the knife and the knife to the hilt!" H. Bruce Humberstone, the man behind all the best Charlie Chan movies, directed it, which may explain why it pops so effectively.

The Secret Circle don't show up much once the ball is in play (or do they?), we spend a lot of time with their opposing numbers, 'the Crime Club' a band of amateur criminologists who tackle complex crimes for sport. (Never mind the class barrier reinforcement inherent in that arrangement, good sir). Irene Purcell--those bare alabaster Norma Shearer-esque arms as lovely as ever--is the heroine. The eminently forgettable Ben Lyon is her nominal fiancee. Stealing the movie with some elegant 'against-type' aplomb is C. Henry Gordon in a rare good guy turn, sporting a turban as the enigmatic foreign detective Yoganda; as a drinky crow-esque crime clubber, Roscoe Karns nibbles on whatever comedy relief isn't chewed down to the nub by mugging Zasu Pitts as a terrified gal Friday and James Gleeson's rattled traffic cop; Robert Frazer, Christian Rub, and Spencer Charters are various spooky eccentric flittering in and out of frame to menace Purceli. Before you know it, the Crooked Circle are being unmasked and getting set for the final escape, but hey - do what I do and just press 'play from beginning' at the first sign of credits, because I guarantee you didn't remember a goddamned wonderful word of it!



Often remade, to no real effect, this is one of those bunco squad seance exposes, that was first--as with so many old dark house vehicles-- a barnstorming stage melodrama. A medium hired for a party amongst British diplomats and swanky ex-pats in India, Madame LaGrange (with her spirit familiar, "Laughing Eyes") demonstrates the secrets all sorts of bizarre seance tricks, like spirit raps and table raising, demystifying the art and bumming everyone out in the service of finding out who killed a friend at a party the previous year. Summoned on the anniversary of the friend's death, Margaret Wycherly cranks up her slow-talking sentimental schtick to the hilt (she played Sgt. York's mom, if the name doesn't ring a bell) while making a half-hearted attempt to access real magic for the climax, making MGM seems less to blame for their veto on fantasy (i.e. the end of Mark of the Vampire - the silent era's fear the public won't 'buy' supernatural explanations) and putting the blame squarely on hardened carnies like director Todd Browning, whose eagerness to expose the seamy underbelly of the seance racket seems mean-spirited (maybe he did it to impress Houdini -dead only three years at the time - or was he?). Until Dracula two years later, Browning shied away from straight-up fantasy thinking the public preferred his sentimental Chaney 'deformed sideshow contortionist loves circus waif' masochism vehicles. So in this case, the old dark moody billing is a cheat as the medium's calling on her fake familiar for real help seems quite absurd and eventually her dated sentimental schtick plus the elaborate disclaimers combine to kind of swamp the picture.

Ah well, you can always fall in love with Leila Hyams in her seductively diaphanous art nouveau Adrian gown, the jagged ruffles of her flapper-y skirt alone are as unforgettable in their way as the windows on the abandoned house in Deep Red. You don't blame mopey Conrad Nagel for mooning over her (though eventually you will want to slap him). The Calcutta setting lets art director Cedric Gibbons enhance the tony parlors with luxurious exotica trimmings and Bela Lugosi is great as the local Indian police inspector, masterfully using his aristocratic bearing to boss around the snotty British, and the big surprise climax is not without its spooky charm.

Nonetheless... as with other mysteries from the period that get too hung up on their big 'twists' (like Secret of the Blue Room), once you know the ending it all seems so hopelessly contrived, and oh man does Wycherly's schtick stick in the craw. It's clear Browning is as taken with her as Hitchcock was with Lila Kedrove in Torn Curtain, or Anderson with Peter Ustinov in Logan's Run. Browning should know: you can't just let old character actors run away with a scene, because they will, and it will be all viewers remember, and we'll never want see it again, anymore than we want to go to the old lady's home and visit granny. She's a swell old girl, but... just the thought kind of gives us a claustrophobic, buried-alive feeling.


On the other hand, twenty years later Wycherly would turn her saintly homespun mom schtick on its head as Cagney's terrifying mother in White Heat, and don't say 1929 mysteries don't age well, because there's one old dark house movie from 1929 with all the same ingredients as this, and it rocks, and it's up next on the hit parade:
This MGM old dark house thriller gets a bad rap for being, like most early sound films, awash in crackles and hisses, static shots, but if you're like me that's all actually plusses, for it gives the impression the air of the early sound era was something we could hear and see, like a special alternate form of liquid. Everything seems to be taking place underwater seen through some magical submarine window of--in this case--thick London fog.  Under its protective anonymity a killer is strangling unwary ex-British military officers. They're dropping like flies in this quick opening montage. Lord Montague (Roland Young) is nearly strangled too, but he manages to get rescued and at Scotland Yard proceeds to start pouring the whiskey and sodas to steady his nerves, and doesn't stop 'til the whole mystery's wrapped up (announcing each new glass is "my first, today"). Turns out he and the dead men all served together in the Great War in the same regiment and you can bet it was written by Ben Hecht, and should have been directed by Howard Hawks, but Lionel Barrymore (for some reason) does a decent job and  there are so many creepy seances, ghosts, mass murder tableaux, walking corpses, and army buddies singing drinking songs that it becomes the perfect film to watch as the sun comes up after a wild night of revels.

The cast is rich with strange faces: Montague's sister (Natalie Moorhead) keeps a coterie of revelers and goes in for seances in a big way, and seems a harmless enough pastime to her doctor fiancee (Ernest Torrance) but is it? Hardworking character actor George Cooper is Montague's loyal servant from the war - he's sure happy to see the regiment back together for a weekend, and knows just what drinks to serve and when to bring another round (immediately); Polly Moran is kept on a short leash as the maid (she can really ham it up... if... if encouraged); a disgraced Major from their old regiment (they drummed the bounder out for cheating at chards) is the main suspect, til he turns up dead in the parlor. Someone give Lord Montague a whiskey and soda (his first today!)!

Things really shift into high gear with the dramatic arrival of Lady Eftra (Dorothy Sebastian -above, center). She might be in town with an agenda against the regiment for the usual racial prejudice biases, or it has something to do with the late major's will or the prejudices facing children of mixed-race British officer marriages, even those of noble caste/estate, driving them to all sorts of byzantine revenge plots (their British side rebelling against the treatment of their eastern side - ala Thirteen Women, another personal favorite of the era). Either way, she may be insane but she sure is lovely.

Yeah, I love this movie to death. I've only seen it a few dozen times but always late at night, intentionally, just so I don't remember it, all the better to not sully the next experience. (It is key, really, to enjoying these old murder mysteries over and over again- make sure you forget who the killer is by never recounting the plot in your head or writing it down - which you shouldn't anyway 0 cuz Spoilers is the devil's work). I do recall that the men are all stepping over themselves to be the last man mooning over her at her bedroom door, which considering her possible yen for killing them doesn't seem at all wise. And I remember great moments like an unbilled Boris Karloff in a pre-Frankenstein 'non-white' role, popping up with the disgraced officer's will and a most guilty expression, warning the men she's deadly and must return to Istanbul where she'll be looked after. My favorite moment occurs earlier, when Lord Montague, leading Scotland Yard into his mansion, opens the parlor door to see if his sister home, and finds the lights out and his sister and a gang of folks mid-seance. It's total darkness while the disembodied head of Sôjin Kamiyama whirls around the room, chanting in a hideous deep voice! Oops! Lady Montague is apparently occupied at the moment. Let's to the study and have another round, gentlemen, and another regimental drinking song if you please.


PS - Good luck finding it!  TCM occasionally shows it - usually very late at night. Demand they make a DVD, maybe part of a pre-code old dark house set?

See also:
Old Dark Capsules: THE GHOUL, CAT AND THE CANARY, THE MONSTER WALKS, THE OLD DARK HOUSE, THE BLACK RAVEN

NOTES:
1. Adapted in 1936 (see: Russian Orthodox Roulette: Lindsay Lohan, THE DEER HUNTER, TROUBLE FOR TWO)