I watched The Black Raven tonight. It was a pretty entertaining murder mystery set in an inn run by George Zucco. It's directed, in 1943, by Sam Newfield. He directed more than a couple of hundred movies and a lot of tv shows. He made a lot of pictures for his brother Sig Neufeld at PRC or Producers Releasing Corporation. There were a lot of poor low budget films made there but occasionally a good one pops up. You can see a bunch of them at the Internet Archive. Mad Monster, I Accuse My Parents and Radar Secret Service all turned up on Mystery Science Theater 3000. Newfield also directed the all midget western The Terror Of Tiny Town. It has all the story elements you'd expect to find in a western but the horses are much lower to the ground.
It's a dark and stormy night when a bunch of people are forced into stopping at The Black Raven Inn. There's a criminal gang leader forced out of his gang by an important guy in the state. There's a bank teller what stole a bunch of cash. An escaped convict who seems to have some knowledge of George's past. There's an escaping couple wanting to get married. They are eloping against the wishes of the father of the bride to be. The father shows up and turns out to be that important guy in the state. He's also pretty shady, he takes the money from the bank teller, then someone plugs him. The bumbling sheriff shows up and gets knocked out. Glenn Strange, a favorite character actor, is the hired help to George Zucco's inn keeper. There's a nice bit of comedy, some drama and some romance. The dialog is ok and the story moves quickly. It's only got 61 minutes to tell the story and they aren't wasting any time. Enjoyable enough that I'll keep a copy and watch it again sometime.
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