It’s long been a mystery why anyone thought it would be a good idea to resurrect Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood’s 1920 play The Bat, itself based on Rinehart’s 1908 Old Dark House novel The Circular Staircase, for a third big screen incarnation at the end of the 1950s. It was released at a … Continue reading
Tony Williams’ under-rated Australian/New Zealand horror film has suffered from poor marketing in the past, which sold it initially as a slasher film (which it most certainly isn’t) and subsequently as a ghost story (which again it isn’t). What it is, is a slow-burning, visually inventive updating of old dark house tropes with atmosphere to … Continue reading
This archetypal old dark house thriller from Monogram is somewhat enlivened by an interesting cast (lead by Ginger Rogers, getting her first top billing, and Lyle Talbot) and some snappy dialogue but is the usual impoverished Monogram chiller that’s forgotten almost as soon as it’s over. Based on the book by Armitage Trail, best remembered … Continue reading
An excellent merger of the then popular haunted house mystery with wise-cracking comedy, Paramount’s The Cat and the Canary was a rare genre excursion for the studio but one that has proved to be an endearing favourite. John Willard’s stage play had been adapted straight for both silent (The Cat and the Canary (1927)) and … Continue reading
The Ghost Walks begins like it’s going to be one of those almost-horror films that proliferated in the 1930s, a spooky old dark house chiller with ghosts that ultimately turn out to be fakes. But this one offers enough twists and turns in its rather complicated plot to keep the interest for most of its hour … Continue reading
Some years before achieving fame as Chinese detective Charlie Chan, Warner Oland was on the wrong side of the law in Irving Pichel’s Edgar Wallace adaptation (the story may have been written specifically for the screen rather than for print). The basic story is old hat (a dying gangster tips off Oland’s crooked Viennese doctor … Continue reading
Jessie Matthews had been the biggest star of pre-war British cinema, enjoying something of a winning streak between 1933 and 1938 when she starred in almost a dozen top money-spinners. But the war years were less kind to Matthews and her career faltered, revived only briefly when, after an absence of five years (her … Continue reading
