The Ghost Walks

I have this movie on a collection of inexpensive B-movies. It's not restored, in fact, the audio was difficult to discern for the first few minutes.

At first, it seemed like a typical haunted house film, and feels very much like the forerunner of Clue, Murder by Death, House on Haunted Hill, etc.

About a half hour into the film, the storyline takes a really interesting twist--and it goes from being a cliché melodrama to something entirely different, and far more entertaining than I had initially thought.

Check it out, it's a great deal of fun, even if the long clips and wider shots (and near lack of music score) make it feel a bit creaky by today's standards.

In THE GHOST WALKS, a group of travelers gets stranded at a huge mansion on a -wait for it- dark and stormy night.

A strange, apparently unbalanced woman named Beatrice (Eve Southern), just happens to be staying at the house on the anniversary of her husband's murder. She spends most of her time wandering around the place, and speaking to someone that only she can see.

During dinner, the lights go out, and the fun begins. Mystery, murder, and thrills commence.

This is indeed another take on the "old dark house" idea, only this time there's a nice twist involved. The horror and comedic elements are balanced well. Throw in an escaped mental patient and a "shock" finale, and we're off!...

After their car crashes into a tree, theatrical producer Herman Wood (Richard Carle), his secretary Homer Erskine (Johnny Arthur) and playwright Prescott Ames (John Miljan) seek refuge from a storm in a nearby house, the home of Dr. Kent (Henry Kolker). The evening takes an unexpected turn when one of occupants of the house, a strange woman called Beatrice (Eve Southern), disappears during a power outage at dinner and later turns up dead.

This old dark house murder mystery has all of the clichés covered, with a stormy night, secret passageways, a revolving bookcase, a booby trapped four poster bed, a painting with eyeholes, and an escaped homicidal maniac. It also features a neat twist in which most of the characters turn out to be actors performing Ames' new thriller in order to impress the producer. The murder, however, was not part of the plan. When Wood discovers Ames' script and realises that he has been duped, he refuses to believe that the murder is real, especially when Beatrice's body conveniently disappears.

This should have been a whole lot of macabre fun -- the premise is a good one -- but the film suffers from pedestrian direction from Frank R. Strayer, an overly talky script, and too much humour that detracts from the horror. When all is said and done, there has been no murder after all, and the escaped lunatic is easily apprehended and taken back to the asylum.

With its twist, the film reminds me a little of Pete Walker's House of the Long Shadows (1983), but that one had four icons of horror in it. The Ghost Walks doesn't.

Some nice plot twists keep the viewer sitting up through this old dark house mystery featuring John Miljan as a playwright with a new play to read—a thriller, this time!

Among a supporting cast of vaguely familiar faces, Richard Carle and Johnny Arthur lend comic relief as a Broadway producer and assistant accompanying Miljan. Producer Carle is constantly firing and un-firing assistant Arthur, which is cute but predictable; on another level entirely is their merry insistence for a good chunk of the film that the entire "mystery" taking place is part of Miljan's presentation of his new play, put on for their benefit!

Nothing particularly unusual here, otherwise, but those of us who enjoy being trapped in a dark house on a stormy night with an escaped lunatic in the neighborhood will find an hour of fun. As a bonus, the final few minutes feature a couple of bursts of really ripe maniacal laughter.

One of the genres that flourished during the decade of the 30s was the variation of crime fiction known as "the murder mystery", as the addition of sound to films helped to make a more faithful translation to film of what the audiences experienced in the original plays. And since horror films were very popular in those years, by enhancing the horror elements of the plots the murder mystery films experienced a popularity almost equal to what it enjoyed in the previous decade (in which the first movies of the genre were produced). Aspiring playwright Charles Belden saw in this renewed interest in murder mysteries a chance to make a name for himself, after Warner Bros. picked his three-act play, "The Wax Works", to create the 1933 horror film, "Mystery of the Wax Museum". Belden joined independent filmmaker Frank R. Strayer to keep making films, and "The Ghost Walks" was one of his best.

In "The Ghost Walks", John Miljan plays Prescott Ames, a young playwright who wants to impress a famous Broadway producer named Herman Wood (Richard Carle) with his new play. Ames takes Wood and his assistant Homer (Johnny Arthur) to his country house for a reading of his play, but his car ends up stuck in the mud during a terrible storm. The three men ask for refugee in an old Mansion which happens to be property of one of Ames' old acquaintances. Inside the house, Wood and Homer witnesses the strange relationship between Ames and the house owners, however, this is all a plan conceived to impress Wood: everyone in the house is an actor playing a role in his murder mystery. Unfortunately, the murder committed is done for real, and while Wood and Homer think it's all fake (after discovering Ames' original plan), the cast knows that someone inside the house is a real murderer.

As expected, Charles Belden's screenplay for "The Ghost Walks" features the classic elements of the murder mystery stories of its time, as we have the stormy night at an old dark house as setting, the obligatory group of suspects, and the touch of comedy. However, what's interesting here is how Belden makes the film a real spoof on the genre with the many twists he puts in his story to play with the clichés of murder mystery plays. The dialogs are excellent, full of wit and lighthearted charm, and while the plot certainly loses a lot of steam by the end (it follows the murder mystery routine anyways), it never fails to be interesting and entertaining thanks to its smart twists and specially its quirky characters. Interestingly, there's an obvious gay subtext that while stereotypical, it's never denigrating and it's genuinely funny at times.

By 1934 director Frank R. Strayer was already an experienced craftsman in the Poverty row side of the film industry, but his partnership with writer Charles Belden would give him a couple of his most interesting movies, and "The Ghost Walks" was one of them. While obviously done on a shoestring budget and the typical production values of independent films of its time, Strayer manages to take advantage of his set and makes an atmospheric movie that fits nicely the mood and tone of the story. The pacing is a little too slow at times, but Strayer knew that the power of his film was on Belden's script and makes the most of it, letting his cast to make the most of their characters with excellent results. Certainly the execution is a bit typical and unoriginal, but Strayer makes an effective albeit restrained work in this film.

As written above, the screenplay is filled with great lines that make the quirky characters shine, and fortunately, most of the cast play with this to their advantage. Veteran character actor Richard Carle is remarkably funny as cranky producer Herman Wood, adding a lot of charm to his character, specially in his scenes with Johnny Arthur, who plays the flamboyant secretary Homer. Arthur is the one who gets the most best scenes, and he gives and hilarious performance as the cowardly yet witty assistant. John Miljan is just effective as Presocott Ames, nothing amazing, but nothing really bad, and the same could be said about June Collyer as Gloria Shaw (the obligatory love interest), whom is just fine. However, Donald Kirke is really enjoyable as the malicious Terry Shaw, and it's a shame he didn't get more screen time.

As usual with Frank R. Strayer films, the low budget hurts the film badly, as while Strayer makes the best he can, the film still feels kind of plain at times. However, the main problem is problem the very slow pace it has, as even when the film is filled with sparkly moments of witty dialogs, it moves at a pace so slow that can become boring and tedious for moments. It also must be said that while effective in their roles, Miljan and Collyer are pretty dull and average when compared to Arthur and Carle, and one wishes the movie had been more focused on the comedic pair they make than on the main couple. Finally, as written above the ending is kind of weak and not up to the high standard of the first and middle parts, although credit must go to Belden for keeping creative plot twists appearing until the very end.

One could say that Charles Belden is an unsung hero of the murder mystery genre, as among the many horror and mystery films that came out the B movie studios nicknamed as "the Poverty Row", "The Ghost Walks" is easily among the best (alongisde Strayer's previous film, "The Vmapire Bat") despite its shortcomings. And even when it's definitely not a masterpiece of the genre, it's a nice way to spend a night enjoying the way it pokes fun at its own origin as a murder mystery play. A very recommended film if you like the genre. 7/10