ONE OF THE BEST, CREEPIEST OLD RADIO SHOWS WAS 'I LOVE A MYSTERY'. Jack Packard, Doc Long and Reggie York were partners in the A-1 Detective Agency and undertook such cases as THE THING THAT CRIES IN THE NIGHT, THE TEMPLE OF VAMPIRES and BURY YOUR DEAD ARIZONA. Columbia Pictures cranked out 3 B-movies based upon the radio series and I watched them as a triple bill. Reggie (played on radio by a young Tony Randall) was jettisoned from the film series and only Jack and Doc appear (played respectively by Jim Bannon and Barton Yarborough) and, while the film adventures don't convey the horrifying frisson of the genuinely creepy radio shows, they do feature a lot of supernatural-adjacent happenings and exquisitely gothic cinematography which evokes RKO's Val Lewton films of a couple years earlier with plenty of shadows and chiaroscuro lighting.
I LOVE A MYSTERY (1945) is the first in the series and features a plot drenched in the 'exotic east' genre. Wealthy Jefferson Monk (the marvelous George Macready) encounters a secret society whose semi-mummified founder from 1000 years earlier is decaying a bit around the head --
and Monk just happens to look exactly like the dead fella. The secret cult offers Monk $10,000 for his head as a replacement for their founder's dilapidated noggin. Oh, not to worry, not to worry, they wouldn't kill Monk to get it. However, the cult's leader Mr. G prophecies that Monk will die exactly one year from today -- and that shortly before Monk's wife Ellen (the even more marvelous Nina Foch) will become confined to a wheelchair. Monk wackily accepts the arrangement and, almost a year later, is convinced he's being followed by a one-legged man carrying a satchel just the size to accommodate his decapitated head. And several days before . . . . his wife Ellen loses the ability to walk. The plot for this film (and the other two as well) is over-the-top insane and that, combined with the higher-than-usual production values provided by Columbia, make this such a great watch. Columbia's roster of contract players (headed by Macready and Foch), beautiful cinematography by Burnett Guffey (who would lens both Macready and Foch in the same year's classic noir MY NAME IS JULIA ROSS) and a tight 69 minute running time make this movie a super start to the series.
THE DEVIL'S MASK (1946) is Columbia's sophomore entry in the series and, while not quite as fun as the first film, is still almost as good. Janet Mitchell's (Anita Louise) big game-hunter father Quentin Mitchell has disappeared in the jungle and she is convinced her step-mother Louise (Mona Barrie) has something to do with it. Mrs. Mitchell has engaged the A-1 Detective Agency because she fears her step-daughter and the girl's boyfriend Rex Kennedy (Michael Duane) may try something drastic.
Meanwhile, a plane has crashed bound for South America and, amongst the scorched wreckage a box containing a shrunken human head is discovered. Police contact a local museum of anthropology run by Raymond Halliday (the sepulchral Richard Hale) which has an entire wing filled with specimens provided by -- you guessed it -- Quentin Mitchell. Louise is convinced she's being followed and meets Jack and Doc in the Mitchell wing of the anthropology museum and both plot threads are joined. One the grounds of the wooded Mitchell family estate, there is also a live black panther kept by Janet's uncle. This time Henry Freulich provides the moody, chiaroscuro cinematography which evokes Val Lewton movies so much that Simone Simon's hypnotism scene at the psychiatrist's office in CAT PEOPLE is exactly duplicated!
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| Simone Simon in CAT PEOPLE (1942) |
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| Anita Louise in THE DEVIL'S MASK (1946) |
Not quite as much creep factor here but still nearly as good as the first film. And yes, this is the second film in a row that features a decapitated head as an important plot point. I wonder if there'll be one in the next film . . . ?
THE UNKNOWN (1946) was the final (and immensely unsuccessful) film in the I LOVE A MYSTERY trilogy which apparently died a quick death at the box office and sounded the death knell for the movie series. This is a shame because the creep factor is quite high with the return of Henry Freulich behind the camera providing even more chiaroscuro shadows and gorgeous cinematography in the setting of a decaying old Kentucky mansion.
If I had to pick which Val Lewton film THIS one reminds me most of, it would have to be I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE -- I mean, there's a mad woman in a flowing white negligee wandering around, after all! Starting off with a flashback, we find the daughter of the distinguished Martin clan Rachel (Karen Morley) has secretly married the lowly Richard Arnold (Robert Wilcox); thus upsetting matriarch Phoebe Martin's (Helen Freeman) plans to have Rachel marry well. Patriarch Captain Selby Martin (Boyd Davis) pulls a gun to force Arnold to take a powder. The two men struggle over the gun and a shot goes off. Mrs. Martin comes in at the sound and sends Rachel to her room. Captain Martin keels over -- the shot actually went into him -- and Mrs. Martin threatens Arnold with lynching if he doesn't disappear from Rachel's life. Phoebe entombs her late husband behind a walls of bricks and declares the House of Martin now cut off from the world. The domineering Phoebe Martin becomes a suffocating dragon who ruined the lives of her three children (Rachel, Ralph and Edward) , as heard in her ghostly voiceover: "but I held them here in bondage to my indomitable will". In the present day, Jack and Doc escort Nina Martin Arnold (Jeff Donnell) who is Rachel's daughter; unknown to Rachel because she's become the madwoman running around in the white nightie. Phoebe has died (that was her ghost narrating) and Jack and Doc were hired to look after Nina's interest in regards to the reading of the will. Cue the old dark house/reading of the will/looney family members/secret passageway movie. And if THAT'S not something which makes your soul sing . . . . well, what are you doing reading this?
The I LOVE A MYSTERY trilogy of films was a really nice surprise. The scripts are pleasingly wacky and all three films are very enjoyable and entertaining. The production values are way above average for these little B pictures, the cast of all 3 films is uniformly superb and the much mentioned cinematography of Guffey and particularly Freulich is top notch. A highly worthwhile triple feature for October or anytime.
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