Le Docteur Cornélius

A pretty clairvoyant (Dorothy Wilson), her greedy father (Dudley Digges), a shady doctor (Warner Oland), and a detective (Stuart Erwin) all look for hidden gold in a haunted house. Nice little old dark house mystery with good direction from Irving Pichel. Dorothy Wilson isn't well known today but she impresses in this role. I'm not sure why she didn't have a bigger career. She's certainly talented enough and beautiful, too. Speaking of people not well-known, Stuart Erwin had a career that last five decades but most people wouldn't know him from Adam today. He was always a solid actor, usually in comedies. But here he shows he can handle being the leading man. He was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar a few years later but didn't win. Warner Oland takes time off from being Charlie Chan to be a bespectacled villain here. He's always good. Character actor Dudley Digges is reliable as ever. Jane Darwell has a brief bit but she's good. Gertrude Hoffman is great, too. Wait until you see her final scene. Overall, a solid cast and nice direction elevates a somewhat flimsy story. Very interesting for the time in that it treats psychic phenomena as real.

The dying Joe Valerie tells a psychiatrist (Warner Oland) that he has hidden a million dollars in gold from a robbery committed years before. He offers the location of the gold in exchange for the doctor ending his life.

The gold is in the house being guarded by two elderly women. One is Mrs. Marble (Jane Darwell). She reads of Valerie's death and intends to take the money and leave. But Joe's ghost appears to her and as a result, she falls down the stairs and dies.

The police aren't sure what happened. At the urging of the officer in charge of arresting fake clairvoyants (Stuart Erwin), they use Patricia, who is actually a real clairvoyant, to tell them what happened.

This was a lot of fun, with young Dorothy Wilson as the clairvoyant and Dudley Digges as her father. Stuart Erwin had a pleasant screen personality used to good advantage here, and Warner Oland, who would become one of the Charlie Chans, is quite different here.

For me the most fascinating thing about the film is that as of this writing, it's 81 years old. Everything in the world has changed, everyone in this film is long gone, and people are still watching the movie.

BEFORE DAWN could be a popular little cult picture if it were shown more often. A Medium (effectively played by the dependable Dudley Digges) and his extra-sensorially-gifted daughter are consulted on the frightening occurrences taking place in a, yes, old and mysterious mansion. Here's the catch, though, this is 1933, and, by golly, the daughter is played for real. I've seen dozens and dozens of television detective shows dealing with this exact subject, but those are all from the 70s-thru-current times, and I know the audience was surprised to hear they were actually utilizing ESP in a serious way. Dorothy Wilson was the attractive and intelligent ingenue raised from the ranks of the RKO secretarial pool, as legend has it. Her role might have been played by any number of marvelous actresses - Maureen O'Sullivan, Frances Dee, Jean Parker, Helen Mack - come to mind, but I'm sure glad it wasn't. Wilson is just as attractive, and yet she projects an almost Margaret Lindsay-level intelligence! She's calm and confident about her gifts, and yet she's no stranger to spook house, candle carrying fright. In addition to her old reliable father, she comes to count on detective Stu Erwin, who has learned to accept her gifts and understands the value of her assistance on the case. Veteran Jane Darwell has an effective bit, but Gertrude Hoffman (making her American film debut) impresses, adding much to the proceedings with a bitter, almost inarticulate portrayal. And stealing central focus at all times is the none-other-like-him great Warner Oland. So trustworthy, so sage, so warm as Charlie Chan, we were very fortunate that in this Post-Chan world, Oland had been given so many opportunities to use his "good" for so much marvelous, entertaining "evil." He was allowed to infuse that same trustworthy, sage warmth into a colorful array of motion picture heavies that take us unexpectedly into a darker world, as in SHANGHAI EXPRESS, DANGEROUS PARADISE, the FU MANCHU entries, and in a host of silent films. To the wise viewer, one may distrust him the moment he enters the film, but to those unsuspecting audiences who may only know his Chan films, beware! BEFORE DAWN and Warner Oland certainly keep you wondering. This is an engagingly stirring and unusual little picture!

Detective Stu Erwin is arresting psychics and scoops up Dorothy Wilson and her father, Dudley Diggs. It takes him about ten minutes of screen time to realize she's no phony and enlist her aid investigating the murder of Jane Darwell.

It's a movie clearly influenced by Avery Hopwood's THE BAT, with an old dark house, a hidden million dollars in gold, someone wandering around the house terrorizing anyone who might take the money. There's a lot going on for a a 60-minute movie, and Irving Pichel directs efficiently, with a cast that includes Warner Oland ad Oscar Apfel in the largest role I've ever seen him in. Erwin, who usually annoys me with his passive persona in comedies, is okay; Miss Wilson doesn't have much to do. Given the short length, this movie at a good clip.

Back in the 1920s and 30s, Hollywood made a bunch of creepy old dark house films. This is yet another one, though it's a tad different here and there...enough so that it's worth seeing even if the plot isn't especially believable.

When the story begins, a man is dying in agony. He begs his doctor (Warner Oland) to kill him and put him out of his mercy....and the doctor agrees to do so AFTER the man tells him about a fortune in hidden gold.

Some time passes. At the home where the money is hid, the dead man's widow learns of his death. Now she no longer needs to keep the loot hidden...she wants to live in style. But when the ghost of the dead man seems to appear, she dies of fright.

Soon after this, the police constable (Stu Erwin) is investigating some psychic frauds. However, one of them seems to have genuine powers and the police decide to let her investigate the death of the lady by fright. What's really going on here and will they figure out the truth in time?

This is a decent old mystery, though I must admit that Warner Oland overacted horribly throughout the film. Additionally, who the killer is becomes rather obvious. Despite this, the film is enjoyable and fun...if also a bit antiquated.