Mystery House

Mystery House (1938)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Rare murder/mystery from Warner has a banker committing suicide but his daughter thinks he was murdered so she invites all the guests from that night back to the house hoping the killer will slip up. Only God knows how many of these "old dark house" films were made throughout the 1930s but this one here is pretty good due to some nice direction and a short running time that makes the film fly by. All of the characters are a lot of fun so this keeps the movie going as well. The ending comes out very well and the mystery is a good one.

All things considered Mystery House is not a bad product coming out of Warner Brothers B picture unit. It's another one of those classic shootings in a locked room, where the verdict can be nothing else, but suicide. Or can it?

The members of the board of directors of a company are gathered on a retreat where the president confronts them with his suspicion that one of them is guilty of embezzlement. He's found shot to death in a locked room, but the man's daughter can't believe it wasn't murder so she hires a private detective and invites the whole lot of them back to the retreat where the crime occurred.

Two murders later and we have an answer. No hints at all as to who and how, but I will say the weapon is in plain sight.

Ann Sheridan and Dick Purcell are our leads and television fans will spot a future detective in William Hopper who played Paul Drake on the Perry Mason series.

Back in 1938 when it ran as the second feature of a double bill, I don't think too many people left their seats.

At a company retreat, Hubert Kingery announces that there has been fraud within the company. Later that night, a shot rings out and his dead body is found in his room. His death is ruled a suicide but his daughter Gwen (Anne Nagel) believes it to be murder. Her aunt's nurse Sarah Keate (Ann Sheridan) suggests her detective boyfriend Lance O'Leary (Dick Purcell). Gwen gathers everyone back to the lodge for the weekend and they get snowed in.

I wasn't really following the various suspects. The movie is less than one hour long and doesn't spend much time giving each character some depth. Quite frankly, the perpetrator can be anybody other than the aunt and Gwen. In fact, the aunt has one of the better twist. Lance and Sarah are not particularly compelling investigators. There are better investigating duos from that era.

It's a decent if unremarkable little mystery with many clichés from that whodunit saturated decade. There's the puzzle of murder in a locked room, an old dark house, and suspects aplenty. Of course, the culprit is exposed amid a climactic assembly of suspects, perhaps the biggest cliché of all. As detective Lance O'Leary (that name should have been reconsidered), actor Purcell has nearly zero charisma, which unfortunately eliminates someone for the audience to identify with. And even the formidable Ann Sheridan is denied her usual pizazz. Only crotchety old Aunt Lucy (Dudgeon) projects real personality. What the movie does have going for it is a clever solution to the locked room.

The studios (here it's Warner Bros.) turned out hundreds of these competent little programmers year after year, a tribute to their professionalism. Of course, a whodunit like Mystery House would migrate later on to TV, especially to a series like Perry Mason (1957- 1966), where the suspects would assemble in a courtroom. Speaking of Mason, catch a sleek, young William Hopper years before his personable detective role on the Mason series.

All in all, the movie's main value may be in it's representative nature of what people went to see on a slow Saturday evening so many years ago.

This high-speed version of one of Mignon Eberhardt's classically plotted mysteries is directed by Noel Smith, one of Warner's experts in short features, timing in at a bit less than one hour. Mr. Smith spent much of the 1930s and 1940s directing second feature westerns and mysteries.

Half a dozen people are isolated in a house while the detective tries to figure out which of them, all with excellent motives, committed the murder. This sort of mystery requires a tremendous amount of talking, and people talk fast. Unhappily, most of the dialogue is exposition and delivered a bit stiffly. Visually, it's very nicely done with some excellent tracking shots to maintain good composition and an overall look like an Old Dark House movie. The print, like many of the major studios' B movies of this period, is in excellent shape.

Over all, it's a pleasant way for mystery fans to spend an hour with a story that will keep you guessing until the end.