The Black Room (1935)

Family history has it that the de Berghmann family started when twins were born and the older murdered the younger in The Black Room. Consequently, the family would end the same way. For this reason the Black Room is sealed up. Enter Gregor and Anton.

The evil Baron Gregor (Boris Karloff) is much despised by his people. Something about young women disappearing, although that is never fully explained. Good brother Anton returns (also Boris Karloff, but with a paralyzed right arm) and ties to mend old grudges. Grumpy Gregor has his eye on hot young Thea. When another young woman disappears the townspeople storm the castle for Gregor’s head. Instead Gregor abdicates his position to gentile Anton, whom everybody loves. And everyone lives happily ever after, and there is definitely no comeuppance, prophecy be damned.

While the split screen effects were not extensive, they were very well handled, especially considering the year. And whomever played the back side of Karloff’s head while talking to him definitely looked the part. Low budget horror is rife with examples of poor stand-in choices (I'm looking at you, Plan 9!). Also, Karloff was enough of an actor to pull off two characters.

The movie plays like a costume period piece with horror overtones. Predictable but atmospheric and short, and is one of Karloffs highest rated thrillers. Better than the prior two, but still AMRU 3.

The Devil Rides Out (1968)

Some rich dude (Christopher Lee) and his buddy Rex discover that a young friend has joined a satanic cult. Our hero uses every method illegal to save him from a fate worse than freedom of religion. He calls up all sorts of arcane knowledge and artifacts to rescue him. And some chick.

Seldom did Lee play the hero (although I’d argue he was the hero of The Wicker Man) and here I could argue he was the villain playing a confidence game convincing his dim-witted friends and relatives of a non-existent danger. He asserts with authority how every action and object is part of satanic activity without providing much evidence, and bullies the doubters. Of course Satan IS at work. Hammer isn’t that deep, but for a while I was tempted to doubt the premise.

Renamed “The Devil’s Bride” for American audiences so we wouldn’t think it was a Western. Here as the lead satanist is Charles Gray who also played Blofeld in Diamonds are Forever (1971) and a Criminologist in some other film.

The Devil Rides Out was released at the start of a satanic panic that spanned the 1970’s and 80’s. Fanatical Christians went crazy seeing the work of the devil behind every activity, starting baseless lawsuits and ruining reputations. Mediocre films like this fed into the nonsense that sometimes rears its ugly head today.

But to be fair, it’s not a terrible film. It had a larger budget than most Hammers and Lee’s favorite of his films. But it is very two dimensional story-wise. Bad guy is bad, good guy is good, and the action is moved forward by the other characters being stupid. Also, they are menaced by a spider that is translucent in the wide shots. In the tight shots they did a close up of a tarantula crawling on a miniature set, which looked exactly like a close up of a tarantula crawling on a miniature set. Sometimes it’s better to forgo the effect if it doesn’t work.

Not scary, not terribly interesting. Just passable by my standards. AMRU 3.

Countess Dracula (1971)

The aging Countess Elizabeth (Ingrid Pitt) gets the hots for a young soldier at her husband’s funeral. Soon she discovers that the blood of a virgin girl makes her skin look young again (by apparently washing away her silly-putty makeup) so she decides to impersonate her own daughter and woo the young man. Complications arise when she learns she must frequently re-apply the virgin-girl-blood, which villagers aren’t very keen about. They weren’t fond of her to begin with.

The main conflict resolves around General Dobi, who loves Elizabeth as she is (rich), the young soldier Imre Toth, who loves who he thinks is the Countess’ daughter, and Elizabeth herself, obsessed with youth and sexy-time. Toth is the closest thing we have to a protagonist so we kinda root for him. But Dobi, cruel and self serving as he is, isn’t without virtue. And we can even relate to Elizabeth’s obsession. Also, sexy-time.

Most of your Hammer Horror weapons are at play here, most notably copious blood and the flashing of cleavage. What doesn’t work are the set which look like that of a stage play, and the makeup and costumes, which are about as convincing as your average Monty Python skit. At one point I could see the tape holding a character’s beard on. And while the 30-something Pitt was quite fetching, I don’t think anyone would mistake her for a nineteen year old. See The Vampire Lovers for context.

Our Countess Elizabeth is a version of the historical Elizabeth Báthory from Hungary and not related to Dracula nor a vampire at all. Much like Pitt’s previous film, it reads like a mediocre costume drama with minor horror elements and brief nudity. By no means a waste of time, but between the two, Vampire Lovers is slightly better, and I’d rewatch neither. AMRU 3.

Night of Terror (1933)

A maniac is killing people with a comically large knife and the police are hapless to stop him. Not a typo. Now the killer is near the Rinehart estate where lots of other things are going on.

Old man Rinehart has a strong willed daughter who insists on going the the theater with random newspaper reporters despite the presence of a killer in the neighborhood, and a nephew Arthur who is working on a groundbreaking discovery that save countless lives. A serum that will allow someone to live without oxygen for several hours without harm. He has an experiment planned where he is buried in a coffin for eight hours to prove it works. Also, nephew and daughter are engaged. #FAMILYSECRETS.

Well, our friendly neighborhood maniac offs good ‘oll dad and random-other-guy and the police come in for more comic relief. Once finished bumbling, Artie goes on with the experiment. That very night! No need for grief to wreck your plans. Enter the household is dad’s brother and niece, heirs to the Rinehart estate. Also we learn that the house servants are included in the will, making them suspects. First is the fearful stereotype chauffeur, whom we can dismiss because of his fearfulness. Also are Degar (Bela Lugosi) and Sika who seem not to have a role to play except to behave strangely. The Bela Lugosi character is particularly suspect because he’s played by Bela Lugosi.

But we don't seem to need another suspect. We see the maniac murder people, seemingly out of the sheer love of murder, but we know that there is. The reporter, would be love interest, and sexual assault perp (I calls them as I sees them!) is played by Wallace Ford, whom old friends may remember as a clown in Freaks (1932). Ingenue Sally Blane played ingenue Mary Rinehart. Mr. Maniac is played by Edwin Maxwell, mostly, maybe, we think. Seems that nobody is entirely sure.

Early in the sound era audio equipment wasn’t all that great and the quickie B pictures like this didn’t get to use the best the studio had. As such the actors had to annunciate at the top of their vocal range just to be picked up, and we get a fairly difficult to watch film. The scratchiness of the print made matters worse.

What partially saves Night of Terror is the better than fair ending. Everything is bundled up nice and neat. Plus we have Lugosi near the top of his game. AMRU 3.

Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

Charlie (Joseph Cotten) is being followed by investigators, so he skips town and visits his sister’s family. They are thrilled to have him visit until his niece (also Charlie) starts to suspect that he isn’t the man everyone believes him to be.

The Doubt I was to have a Shadow of was removed by the streaming services description of the movie. I know it’s seventy five years old, but shame on Amazon. There’s no excuse for it. Anyhow, the movie is set and filmed in a small California town as young Charlie slowly pieces together the clues to Uncle Charlie’s past. Teresa Wright was downright charming as the small town girl. Young, naive, but strong. Hume Cronyn was also there. So there’s that.

This drama unfolding in idealistic small town America is not short on atmosphere. Director Alfred Hitchcock called it his favorite of his films, and Shadow of a Doubt has a lot to offer. Hitch's first fully Hollywood production, it feels more polished than some of his earlier work. It’s not my favorite of his, but it is in the top five. My mom would have loved it. AMRU 4.

“Forty thousand dollars is no joke, not to him, I bet. It's a joke to me. The whole world's a joke to me.”

The Terror of Tiny Town (1938)

The Villain Bat Haines plays two ranches off each other so he can rustle cattle from both sides. Oh, and everybody are dwarfs.

This low budget exploitation flic was inspired when the producer overheard someone saying "if this economy doesn't turn around, we'll have to start making pictures with midgets." The result is a film with little value beyond this novelty.

Many little people in films of this era sport thick Austrian accents. Hollywood apparently put out word that they were hiring and they didn't need much encouragement what with racial purity being on the march.

While the majority of the cast lacked acting talent, our hero (Billy Curtis) had better than fair horsemanship skills. His physicality was noticeable compared to the rest of the cast, who had difficulty with the full sized set. They rode ponies and Curtis being tall for a dwarf (4’2”) seemed over sized on his mount. His love interest, if IMDb is to be believed, celebrated her 101st birthday in January.

I felt a few of the actors appeared to be children, and I discovered that I wasn’t too far off. Fern Formica (that cannot possibly be her real name) would have been thirteen when the film was released, making her randy barroom song all that more inappropriate.

Poor acting, throw-away story, and bad diction. Other than the actors short stature and the films short run time, The Terror of Tiny Town has little to offer. AMRU 2.5.

The Woman in Green (1945)

Young women of London are being killed and mutilated (had a finger cut off) and Scotland Yard (or whoever) has yet to find a single clue. Not one single clue! So, quite predictably, they turn to Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone), and to a lesser extent, Watson (Nigel Bruce).

A significant plot point was spoiled by the TCM description and I hid this from the son that watched it with me. I won’t pay it forward. There is no reason for this to happen. This is the only one of the original Holmes films to fall into the public domain, which may explain the noticeably poorer audio and video quality.

Here again the studio used the same actors in different roles. Our titular Hillary Brooke, Henry Daniell, and Paul Cavanagh each appeared in two other episodes. This may have helped in keeping a consistent tone and quality.

The Woman in Green is not much of a mystery, isn’t as funny as the others, and has a less interesting story. Son and I both agreed it was the the worst of these so far. The poor audio quality likely didn’t help. I started these with my mom early last year and after brief hiatus when my boys went to camp for the summer, then got a few more in last fall. I had wanted to see the rest with her but fate didn’t allow it. Bowing to my completionist instincts, I’ll watch the rest. Not sure if my boys will bother. So, we were supposed to know that her gray dress was actually green? AMRU 3.