The Black Abbot

A gang of dodgy crooks use the legend of The Black Abbott to hide a crime.

Zero action, it's like a stage play, it's sixty minutes of dialogue, some of it good, some of it really dreary. It's amusing in parts, arguably thanks to two characters in particular.

Mary Hillcrist was a funny character, so quirky and eccentric, Drusilla Wills certainly had charisma, best of all though, The Maid and her runny nose, she stole it for me, she was so amusing.

The plot is non existent, it's almost as if a group of actors were given a few loose threads, and told to play out a scenario to the best of their abilities. When The End finally appears, you'll be scratching your head trying to work out what it was all about.

It looks decent, it's full of atmosphere, and for 1934, it's a really clean looking film.

5/10.

"Ghosts indeed! Servant's talk!" Crooks use the legend of the ghostly Black Abbot at an old mansion near London in order to kidnap its rich owner. In fact there is a former monastery that adjoins the large house - Old Monk's Hall, "It's 'aunted!" The legend says that the old wing of The Grange is haunted by the Black Abbot, who was said to have dabbled in Black Magic. This is a "quota quickie", it runs a mere 56 minutes but even that felt somewhat stretched for what is a very basic plot. Two characters, a gardener and a maid, not only add a comical element but they are obviously there to pad out the run time too. He is constantly talking about his small rare plant (a Saxifrage) and she keeps talking about her heavy cold in a very bunged up sounding nasally voice, this soon wears very thin and they were hardly funny in the first place. Made in 1934 the English spoken is all very jolly, old chap! Indeed, seeing the old fashions and motor cars (Austin) was rather splendid too! It is very talky and with most of the characters being situated in the same areas this looks more like a stage play than a movie set. As a horror fan I found the ghostly Abbot wandering around the grounds and the old building itself to be atmospheric. The plot, well nothing much to say really other than decades later it could have been used as an episode for "Scooby Doo". To top things off there is a silly shootout in the dark at the end. I had never heard of this British film before, despite its age the print that the excellent Talking Pictures TV screened was of a good quality. Worth a look.

"The Black Abbot" (1934) is a minor British quota quickie made by Real Art Productions (54 quota quickies made between 1931-1935), and this one was released through Radio Pictures (RKO in Britain at that time) in Britain. I watched this several years ago, remembered that it was something I liked somewhat because Judy Kelly was in it, but I'd forgotten its premise. Well, this is - as I said - a minor "Locked-Door Mystery" (as called by another reviewer), a take-off of the Old Dark House style mystery, where a man in black (supposedly the ghost of an old abbot who was in the monastery that's being restored for living quarters) traipses about doing...well...it's a mystery, isn't it? And, in mysteries, there's usually either a murder or an attempted one.

This one stars John Stuart, Richard Cooper, Judy Kelly, Ben Welden, Edgar Norfolk, and others whose names are basically unknown today. It's rather simple, rather straightforward, and is interrupted often with dribble between two of the liveried servant people who are in love. I'd say 'madly-in-love', but the one, the male, is more interested in his rare species of flower that looks on screen like a cactus plant, while the female has an unchanging cold which makes her talk, not only through her nose, but through her sniffles.

Fun for 56 minutes if you're a fan of the early 30s stuff of this ilk. If you've never encountered it, be aware of English silly-asses and humor where suspense probably should be and suspense that can be figured out from behind the corner a mile away. You may not be able to guess whodunit, but you'll do it fine just sittingthroughit. If you don't think you can make it all the way - don't watch it.

This is an archetypal quota quickie made by the studios that specialised in making quota quickies for distribution by American film companies thereby circumventing the protectionist provisions of the 1928 Quota Act.So this film is 56 minutes long which will mean that Twickenham would have been paid £5600 by Radio Pictures.So Twickenhams profit would be that amount less the actual cost of production.So every method that could be used would be adopted to cut costs.These are all evident here.A thriller in a country house where the action takes place at night means that sets used previously can be fertilized.Editing is cut to a minimum.This means that actors are grouped together so when it comes time for them to say their lines they walk towards the camera,say their lines and walk back to their original marks.It is a bonus to add in an American character actor,in this case Ben Welden.This merely impresses the British audience as there is no chance that RKO Radio will release it in the states.The title is the most sinister aspect of this film.

This is one of those British quota quickies in which the only name I recognize is cinematographer Ernest Palmer. It starts out with John Stuart getting engaged to Judy Kelly, some talk about the household ghost, the Black Abbot, then Miss Kelly's father is kidnapped.

It's a lesser variety of the British Locked Room mystery, with silly-ass humor and servants canoodling each other. Palmer's camera-work is wonderful -- lots of moving shots --but the performances are all over the shop, indicating that director George Cooper either couldn't afford to hire decent actors for the smaller roles, or couldn't direct actors for beans. At 54 minutes it's bearable, but I won't be revisiting.