Runtime: The version I saw was only 63 minutes long
Directed by: Benjamin Stoloff
Starring: Bela Lugosi, Wallace Ford, Sally Blane, Bryant Washburn, Tully Marshall
From: Columbia
As of late I've mentioned a few times my issues with my Internet/phone/cable. Well, I've been gaslit by what's happened during this period of time but today I have a new provider which installed some fiber optic cables and now everything is not only working again, the speeds are notably improved from before... and the performance in the past was good when it worked. Realistically, there should be no more problems with that anytime soon so it should be a LONG while before I carp and moan about such things in a Letterboxd review.
The installation was done this morning; this was seen on Prime in the early afternoon, although it's easy to find elsewhere as it's in the public domain. I've known of this for years and mainly chose it due to its brief length at barely more than an hour. It is a Pre-Code horror movie involving a mansion filled with various characters... this includes a young lady who is engaged to a scientist-who is going to be buried alive to prove that he created a serum that causes someone to breath without oxygen!-but she is constantly bothered by a tool of a newspaper reporter who always forces himself on her, “mystical” characters, one of whom goes into trance-and in the third act does a seance-& another played by Bela Lugosi, and (unfortunately) a Black servant who is a total buffoon. Oh, and there's an ugly-looking maniac prowling around in the area.
There are actually other characters which also come across as one-note. All that said, it is an entertaining yarn which has enough macabre laughs/spooky moments for me to say that this was “fine”. Plus, it was nice to see some other faces I recognized (Wallace Ford, Tully Marshall). In addition, the ending scene has one of the characters breaking the fourth wall and talking right to the audience, for reasons I won't spoil but it was a menacing message. I actually saw that clip before and it was funny out of context. In context... it's still funny.
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