Here's another Warner Brothers Archive Collection, Warner Brothers Horror/Mystery Double Features, featuring horror and mystery titles from the 1930s and 1940s. I'd seen some of them before, on Turner Classic Movies, it's probably what sent me looking for the DVDs. I ordered this set ages ago and it got buried on the To Be Watched shelves. It surfaced recently and got seen. Here's a list of the films, 2 to a disc. All of the films are short, ranging from 54 to 71 minute, they don't waste much time on padding. All of these films were under the First National Pictures banner when they came out. The company started in 1917, under another name, and in 1929 they were absorbed by Warner Brothers. They made films under the First National Pictures heading until 1936.
Find The Blackmailer 1943 This is based on a magazine story called Blackmail With Feathers by G T Fleming-Roberts, the screenplay was written by Robert E Kent and the director was D Ross Lederman. Robert E Kent has a good number of writing credits including Rock Around The Clock and Don't Knock The Rock (both of which I just coincidentally picked up on clearance DVD yesterday), Zombies On Broadway, Charlie Chan In Reno, a couple of the Great Gildersleeve films, a couple of the Dick Tracy films, a Philo Vance, and so on.
Jerome Cowan is a private eye, he gets hired to find a talking raven. He finds the owner of the bird, dead. There's a mix of larceny and comedy going on. Jerome likes to quip and he cam take a punch. There's a politician getting blackmailed, a dead guy, a crooked lawyer, a pretty and sexy actress, some thugs, all the things that make a mystery fun.
The Smiling Ghost 1941 Stuart Palmer wrote the original story and he co-wrote the script with Kenneth Gamet. They had some help from Philip Wylie on the story and Ben Markson and Ralph Spence on the screenplay. Lewis Seiler is the director. Stuart Palmer is the creator of Miss Hildegarde Withers. I've read several of his books and seen many of his movies.
Wayne Morris a goofy guy who's out of work. He's got bills piling up and he puts an ad in the paper looking for any work that's legal. He's offered a $1000 to play the fiance of Alexis Smith for a month. Wayne thinks it's a bit goofy but he's a goofy guy who needs that 1000 samolians. That's a lot of money for a month in 1941. Turns out Alexis has a history of short lived husbands. She's gotten rich on the insurance and been dubbed the Kiss Of Death Girl by the news media. Lucky for Wayne he's got his valet, Willie Best, and spunky reporter Brenda Marshall on his side. They keep him from being victim number four. It's pretty much a comedy with bit of mystery and horror. The New York Times said it was predictable and inane. Sometimes that's what you need in a film. I liked it and I'd already seen it once before. I always like Willie Best, he always delivers on his roles, even if he's just playing a similar character.
Sh! The Octopus 1937 The movie is based on two plays, The Gorilla by Ralph Spence and Sh, The Octopus by Ralph Murphy and Donald Gallaher. George Bricker smashed the two plays together into the screenplay and William McGann directed. If the previous movie was a goofy comedy this is the same but with goofy turned up to 11. It's like George took all the gag scenes out of the two plays but didn't spend any time linking them all up. Still, I got a kick out of it.
That Hugh Herbert, Marcia Ralston and Allen Jenkins above. Hugh and Allen are a couple of bumbling detectives who are after the notorious criminal the Octopus. The script quickly puts everyone in an old lighthouse. The boat disappears and the lot of them are trapped. There's a dead body hanging from the underside of the light and a real octopus keeps attacking. The gags keep coming so you don't have much time to think about the plot holes. No matter. I had a laugh. Someday I'll watch it again.
The Hidden Hand 1942 Here's another film that was based on a play. Rufus King wrote the play Invitation to a Murder, Anthony Coldeway and Raymond L Schrock wrote the screenplay, Benjamin Stoloff is the director.
A rich old lady just happens to have a criminally insane brother. She arranges for him to escape prison and dresses him up as her butler. That's them on the left above. The rich old lady has invited her relatives for a reading of her will. Then the killing starts. Willie Best is the scaredy cat chauffeur. There's oodles of gags and plenty of slapstick. I'll certainly want to watch it again.
Mystery House 1938 This time the movie was adapted from a novel, The Mystery Of Hunting's End, by Mignon G Eberhart, Sherman L Lowe and Robertson White wrote the screenplay and Noel M Smith was the director. I don't care much for the poster above, the one below is better but no winner.
Dick Purcell isn't much interesting but Ann Sheridan certainly is. It's a locked room mystery with a dead CEO and a secluded hunting lodge filled with suspects. William Hopper, Paul Drake on the Perry Mason show, is one of them. There will be some more killin's before they get to the end of the movie. Ann plays the nurse of the CEO, she'll play the same character in the next movie, and Aline MacMahon played the same character in a 1935 movie called When The Patient Slept. I haven't seen that. I did enjoy Mystery House and would watch it again.
The Patient In Room 18 1938 Mignon G Eberhart wrote the novel with the same title, Eugene Solow, Robertson White wrote the screenplay and Bobby Connolly and Crane Wilbur directed. Ann Sheridan is a nurse again and this time she's working in a hospital. Patric Knowles is there for rest cure. Someone steals $100,000 worth of radium and kills a patient. Then the head doctor is murdered. Pool Patric has to solve the case and keep him and Ann from getting murdered. Not quite as funny as some of the other films int he lot but still entertaining.
All of them were worth seeing and the set's a nice addition to my pile of movies. I'll be wanting to watch them again.
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