The Black Doll

A rich jerk is killed after receiving a black doll as a warning. A young detective and buffoon sheriff work to solve the crime. I love movies where a murder takes place in a house on a dark and stormy night and the detective(s) investigate all the suspects. This was released as part of Universal's Crime Club series and, in my opinion, it's the best of the bunch. Donald Woods is enjoyable and lovely Nan Grey is always worth watching, but the real scene stealer is Edgar Kennedy as the sheriff in over his head trying to solve the murder. Every scene with this guy is gold. The rest of the cast is good, too. A few familiar faces in there. This is the kind of picture that you feel like you've seen all of it before in various movies, but it doesn't really hurt your entertainment much. The humor helps elevate it above many similar films. It's a well put-together B movie of its type. A type which I happen to enjoy quite a bit.

This B-movie was the second entry in Universal's long-forgotten Crime Club series, based on a popular run of mystery books of the time. A few of the entries are well above-average, thanks mainly to strong source material (Jonathan Latimer wrote several of the originals) and fine, resourceful low-budget direction by the obscure Otis Garrett (who died just as his career was getting established). This one concerns a skein of murders presaged by a native doll, a revenge plot revolving around the discovery of a rich mine many years before.

This was Garrett's first directorial foray (he had edited the previous entry), and he shows plenty of enthusiasm early on with some clever camera setups (the first murder, by tossed knife, is seen reflected in a mirror). Comedy relief was de rigueur in the genre at the time, and unfortunately, Edgar Kennedy's low-humor bumbling cop is given far to much prominence, totally undermining the creepy atmosphere established before his appearance. Also, the always-nasty C Henry Gordon gets killed off early on in the proceedings. The plot never really gels, and it all ends with one of those Charlie-Chan-style all-the-suspects-in-one-room scenes, which is handled in a disappointingly pedestrian manner. In the leads, Nan Grey is very fetching and Donald Woods affable. Stanley Cortez, still trapped in B-land, was co-cinematographer. Unless you're a completist, you can give this one a miss and try the strikingly-edited "Lady in the Morgue" instead.

Retired mine owner C. Henry Gordon has isolated himself in his home, with his daughter, his sister, and his son. When a black doll turns up, he calls in his former partners and they discuss a dead man. Then Gordon is killed, and sheriff Edgar Kennedy shows up to bumble his way through the investigation. Thankfully, there's private detective and chef Donald Wood on hand, to woo Gordon's daughter, Nan Grey, and point out the obvious mistakes in observation that Kennedy makes.... except when he's standing on Kennedy's foot.

It's the second of Universal's CRIME CLUB movies, and it has a good if wordy script from William Edward Hayes' mystery novel. Director Otis Garrett is by no means the best director in the world for his first time holding the megaphone, but he had been a skilled editor and knows how to push the movie along at a good pace, leaving his actors to say the words well. With Doris Lloyd, John Wray, Addison Richards, Holmes Herbert, and William Lundigan.

When Nelson Rood (C Henry Gordon) finds a black doll on his desk, he knows it can mean only one thing - his death. Sure enough, later that night, Rood is killed by a knife to the back. Rood was never the kindest man in the world, so he had his fair share of enemies. Rood's daughter's boyfriend, Nick Halstead (Donald Woods), fancies himself an amateur detective and sets out to investigate. But Halstead will have to stay out of the way of the local bumbling sheriff if he's to find a killer.

Based on the IMDb rating (5.9) and all the positive reviews, I know The Black Doll has some fans. I'm, however, not among them. While I enjoyed some of the mystery elements of the story and a character or two, I had a couple of big problems with the film that kept me from enjoying it. First, as my little intro suggests, boyfriend Halstead does most of the real detective work. And by that I mean he makes a series of wild guesses generally based on very little real evidence, yet somehow he's miraculously correct 100% of the time. I like the solutions to my mysteries to be more fact-based. Second, bumbling Sheriff Renick (Edgar Kennedy) is more than I can take. He's just not funny. His brand of comedy, including a pocket full of pipes he continuously smokes and then breaks, doesn't appeal to me at all. Sadly, Kennedy ruined any hope of me finding much entertainment in The Black Doll.

3/10

There is a liberal dose of humor in this movie where Edgar Kennedy, master of the slow burn, plays a sheriff investigating a murder in a small town. The point of the plot is the Black Doll of the title and a harbinger of death which appears and disappears through out the proceedings. Kennedy is "aided" by a newspaper reporter who manages to put the whole thing together.

Its a breezy 65 minutes that fly by almost as an after thought. The mystery is clever but it seems stretched out to fill the required running time. The cast is quite good and the whole thing has the feel of something from a lazy Sunday.

Its so breezy as to be utterly forgettable. I recently found this on one of my video tapes and was totally baffled by what it was. I know that I had watched this previously since I removed the commercials at some earlier time, but I can't for the life of me remember ever seeing it other than when I just popped it into the VCR last night. Now some twelve hours later I find the film rapidly disappearing from my mind.

If you want to see a film you'll enjoy for its running time but which will leave no trace on you consciousness, this is the movie for you.