A thrilling mystery of a supernatural killer!
1947-02-01
N/A
68 min
A woman is married to the son of a doctor, the proprietor of a private sanatorium, where she is under unwilling treatment. Both the son and the doctor indicate they want the marriage dissolved. Arriving at the scene is a mysterious personage identified as the doctor's brother who formerly was a stage magician in Europe. He is accompanied by a threatening dwarf...
It's only an hour long, but this still manages to involve a couple of the worst performances I've seen in a long, long time. Bela Lugosi and George Zucco - who can normally be relied upon to deliver well enough in these short horror/thriller features are just not on form together at all here. The dialogue is unsure in what genre the film wants to sit - a suspenseful thriller with the odd bit of comedy, or a comedic thriller with the odd, well, thrill. It appears to, reluctantly, settle for the latter but by then the somewhat irrelevant story of a murdered woman who relates the events leading up to the crime no longer really matters. It has way too many daft sub-plots and by the time we do approach the end you've almost forgotten what/who or, more importantly - why?
