The first of what turned out to be six low budget Universal horrors based on the Inner Sanctum radio show. I’ve never heard an episode of this but guess it’s along the line of something like Suspense. The script for this entry was apparently an original for the screen, but feels like an adaptation of a radio show, complete with lots of internal monologuing from the narrator, whoops, main character, a doctor played by Lon Chaney Jnr. He blacks out one night to find his trampy wife has been killed and he’s a suspect.
It’s not a bad mystery, and would have made a tight half hour but feels padded here – it needed another subplot or something. Or for Chaney to have actually done it so he goes on a rampage. Stylish photography (is there a badly shot Universal horror film?) and direction that occasionally tries to do something interesting, eg Chaney’s POV as he arrives at a crime scene, but also occasionally seems to fall asleep. Varying acting; Chaney Jnr starts off awkward but improves as his character gets in more trouble (it’s a shame it all couldn’t have ended badly – Chaney did a great tragic end). J Carrol Naish is the detective on the case.
No comments:
Post a Comment