Tomorrow at Seven

A killer known as the Black Ace is on the loose. The Ace leaves a calling card with the time of his victims death on it. The Ace has killed several prominent people and a rich friend of some of the victims, Winters, is looking to put a stop to it. Chester Morris plays a mystery writer putting together a book on the killer. He meets the daughter of Winters on a train on his way to offer what he knows in the hunt for the killer. Not long after that Winters receives a death threat and while in the middle of an air plane flight the flights flicker for a moment and he is killed.

This is an okay film that is ruined by two bumbling cops Dugan and Clancy who push a witty and clever mystery into the realm of silly. Normally I like the work of Frank McHugh and Allen Jenkins but here they just come off as being bumbling fools. Its awful, or rather not funny. They take the desire to know more out of the mystery and the laughs out of the comedy. There is no real reason for them to exist except to kill time.If you can divorce them from the rest of the movie this is a good little mystery, something not easy to do.

Worth seeing if you run across it. Not sure its a rental but on late night TV its worth trying.

A good cast enlivens this rather routine closed circle of suspects murder done by RKO. Chester Morris over from MGM stars in this film, as a rather cocky crime novelist out to solve some real crimes. Over at Warner Brothers James Cagney would have fit this part better than O.J. Simpson fit that glove.

Morris is on the trail of a killer known as 'the Black Ace' who leaves an ace of spades at each of his crime scenes daring the police to catch him. Morris is following a lead concerning millionaire Henry Stephenson and on the way he meets up with Vivienne Osborne who is the daughter of Stephenson's private secretary Grant Mitchell.

When Stephenson gets a calling card they all decide to fly to his bayou plantation including a couple of Chicago cops played by Frank McHugh and Allen Jenkins. As they are about to land Mitchell is murdered when the lights go out.

Things might have been solved faster if the law wasn't in the persons of McHugh and Jenkins. These two geniuses couldn't catch a cold they must have had influence at City Hall to have been made detectives. But they are a great deal responsible for a lot laughs in this film. Political influence wasn't exactly unknown in Chicago.

This probably would have been done with more style at Warner Brothers, still this is an entertaining mystery with more laughs than usual thanks to McHugh and Jenkins.

Tomorrow at Seven (Ray Enright, 1933) is like a Monogram Chan before the fact: a creaky, archaic mystery with a none-too-surprising culprit - but fun just the same. Chester Morris (later Boston Blackie in Columbia's exceptional B movie series) is a novelist investigating the inspiration for his latest book, a killer known as The Black Ace. He travels to see wealthy Henry Stephenson, who's also researching said homicidal maniac, and before you can say "when you finish that jigsaw, it's going to contain a threat from the killer", Stephenson's secretary finishes a jigsaw, and finds it contains a threat from the killer. This is a slow-moving production that recalls movies made in the early days of sound cinema, but the name cast keeps the questionable narrative afloat and it's a delight to see legendary character actors Frank McHugh and Allen Jenkins as a pair of thick cops. "Anyone touch the body?" a creepy coroner enquires of them. "Nobody," replies McHugh confidently. "Only Dugan and me and Drake and that guy Henderson and Broderick."

I think this qualifies as an "Old Dark House" film. Most of it takes place in a house, which is indeed both old and dark. Ralph Spence penned the typically high-quality script - it's impossible to guess the killer.

What really makes the film is the comic relief in the form of incompetent detectives played by Frank McHugh and Allen Jenkins. Actually, they're in the film as much as the leads. I'm a big Allen Jenkins fan. His Depression-era dumb guy persona brought a charm to every film it graced that's totally missing in today's actors. 8/10.

The Black Ace warns his victims ahead when the time will come for them to die. Such is the basic premise of Tomorrow at Seven directed by Ray Enright and scripted by Ralph Spence. Interwoven into this basic premise is a young Chester Morris going to a Mr. Thorton Drake because he knows all there is to be known about the Black Ace. Morris is writing a book, meets a cute secretary that can introduce him, and all the main characters from that point on - including two cops included for protection - board a small plane to go to a huge mansion in Louisiana. All this to escape the ominous note saying Mr. Drake, played indelibly by Henry Stephenson, would die "tomorrow at seven." The old Southern home is reminiscent of the home used in the 1939 version of The Cat and the Canary(also taking place in Loiusiana). This film works because it has a pretty tight and inventive script, some good direction, and good acting. The mystery is not too terribly easy to solve - and though I figured it out - I could never be 100% sure!