Lively, entertaining reviews of, and essays on, old and newer films and everything relating to them, written by professional author William Schoell.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

HOUSE OF MYSTERY


HOUSE OF MYSTERY (1934). Director: William Nigh.
"Horatio, are you going to allow this vulgarian to browbeat me?"
A man named Prendegast (Clay Clement), who now calls himself John Pren and appears to be crippled, lives alone in a creaky old house with his nurse Ella (Verna Hillie) and an ageless Hindu gal named Chanda (Joyzelle Joyner), as well as a big stuffed gorilla. Into the house come a group of people who were investors in an expedition to India twenty years earlier. Prendagast made off with a treasure -- with a curse on it -- as well as Chanda (who doesn't appear a day older), and now the investors want their share of the fortune. In the old house tom-toms begin to sound whenever a murder -- of one of the shareholders, natch -- occurs, and the big ape comes to life and strangles its victims. Harry Bradley and Mary Foy are fun as the hen-pecked Professor Horatio Potter and his termagant wife, Hyacinth. Ed Lowry is the nominal hero of the piece, an extroverted insurance salesman who takes a shine to Ella. Irving Bacon, who plays the inspector investigating the murders, played Ethel's father on I Love Lucy. House of Mystery is no world-beater, but it is fun of a minor kind.

Verdict: For addicts of old house movies primarily. **1/2.

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