The Dark Hour

"But I didn't do it." "What! Then who the heck did?" The Dark Hour keeps viewers—and detectives—guessing until the final moment. A truly puzzling mystery combined with some juicy performances make this quite a nifty little hour of fun.

Berton Churchill as the retired detective—respectfully requested by his younger counterpart Ray Walker to assist on the case—is wonderfully nimble-minded and yet perhaps suspicious. Irene Ware is earnest and intelligent as the niece of rich old uncles in whose house the mystery develops—but she's obviously hiding something. Hedda Hopper bustles in occasionally with energy and smarts as an aunt who seems to know plenty but isn't saying just what.

Not a fancy movie, but one that's paced just about right: The action certainly moves along quickly, but care is taken to allow us time to notice which characters are thinking a bit more than they're saying. Irene Ware's character, for example, is given an extra moment of screen time here and there—just enough of an extra glance for us in the audience to see quite clearly that she's holding something back. Again, it's not fancy or subtle—but it does show that director Charles Lamont was paying attention.

The dialog is crisp enough; the actors move with energy. Hopper and Churchill, in particular, appear to enjoy themselves immensely in their roles.

My only complaint is that the sound is badly chopped up in the version I saw. Lines are dropped and cut into pieces (including in a couple of key moments!). I can only assume that the print from which this came had been shown about a hundred times and broken and been spliced in about that many places. Oh, well—I can live with that. Otherwise: a top-notch B mystery.

The only big name i recognize in here is Hedda Hopper, who had started with bit parts in the silent films, become pretty well known years later, and then started her own "woman about town" gossip column, now playing herself in later films. (Gotta see he in "The Women" !) In "Dark Hour", two old timers are watching over their neice "Elsa", played by Irene Ware. ( Ware was apparently Miss United States 1926. ) Elsa will inherit EVERYTHING when the uncles go, so they are concerned that she might some bad decisions... and then... something TERRIBLE happens... and everyone tries to figure out who dunnit! Picture and sound quality are pretty turrible... but it's not so bad. Based on a novel by Sinclair Gluck.. couldn't find any info about him; this seems to be the only thing of his made into a film. Directed by Charles Lamont. He had been around in silents since the 1920s, writing and directing. Worked with some of the biggies in comedy and drama. Dark Hour is "okay"... it's just like every single "thin man", or any who-dunnit ever written. nothing in the middle really happens until the last five minutes when everything comes together. It's not so bad.

If you enjoy old mystery movies and like your mystery with a little light humor, this film will please you. There are plenty of unusual characters and twists to the story that will keep you amused if not confused. The characters are well played and the story is quite intriguing. Unlike most of today's movies that rely on special effects, this film lets the story and characters set up the mood for the film, and by doing so sets up some unexpected situations such as two detectives trying to solve the mystery. One is an older fellow, the other younger. Instead of teaming together, they work independently for the most part and compare notes, each feeling the other out. There is the usual romantic interests as well, and all ingredients are made to blend pretty well. There is indeed a lot going on in this old film , as you will see.

Some genuinely inspired bad acting doesn't prevent 1936's "The Dark House" from showering a few sparks of real originality. Two elderly brothers and their niece reside in a mansion. They're fearful something bad will happen and they're right. Two murders take place, neither appearing to have occurred as first thought.

This is a good house murder mystery. Elsa (the very beautiful and former Miss United States, Irene Ware) is falling in love with a detective, Jim Landis (Ray Walker). Elsa regularly meets Jim at retired detective Paul Bernard's house (he's played by Burton Churchill). Elsa's putative guardians, her uncles, don't like this developing match one bit. Of course their time together is as chaste as many moviegoers (and the moralistic censor-type folks) demanded.

One death having led to another, the two sleuths wisely combine forces to find the killer and figure out why the murders occurred in the first place. The plot is a bit tricky. Adding to the mystery is the possible role of Elsa's aunt, Mrs. Tallman. Here is a real treat-she's Hedda Hopper, once dubbed the "Queen of the Quickies," a woman who made a number of forgettable features before discovering that the printed word was mightier than fleeting celluloid images. For decades she and Louella Parsons battled for scoops as Hollywood's prime, incendiary gossip columnists.

Walker is the really weak actor here. He performs with a deadening numbness that made me wish he was the killer who would be executed on-screen. But his interaction with the retired senior cop is both interesting and dramatically effective.

Charles Lamont, born in Russia, was a veteran director who turned out many "B" flicks and some better comedies during a very long career (he did a number of the Abbott and Costello and Ma and Pa Kettle flicks). He's famously forgotten today for such films as the deservedly rarely viewed "I Was a Shoplifter" that brought young Tony Curtis to the screen. In "The Dark Hour" he crafted an interesting murder mystery. If you can get it as I did for $4.99 on DVD (thanks again, Alpha Video) it's worth your time just to see Hedda Hopper disporting herself as a grand dame but maybe I'm just dating myself.

6/10

The plot has two reclusive old men keeping a watchful eye on their affairs they barely allow their niece to go out and visit a retired detective living next door. The woman is also visiting an active police detective and friend to the retired detective. When one of the uncles is murdered the young detective and retired detective join forces to solve the crime.

The suspect pool is too shallow to sustain this films 70 minutes and I would love to think that you can cut 20 minutes out of this and get a decent thriller, but I don't think its possible since this movie goes round and round dropping just enough clues and clever dialog in the interest of solving the crime that you really can't cut much. It would be a better movie if it simply got on with it instead of stopping for long scenes of discussion that seem more designed to fill out the running time rather than economically tell the story. Frankly I found myself hitting the fast forward in order to just have the movie move at a reasonable speed, which is a shame since this film is filled with tons of pithy dialog between all of the characters that I never heard.

Recommended for those with patience.

(Still any movie where the butler named Foot and played by great character actor EE Clive can't be all bad)