Mystery House

It's a decent if unremarkable little mystery with many clichés from that whodunit saturated decade. There's the puzzle of murder in a locked room, an old dark house, and suspects aplenty. Of course, the culprit is exposed amid a climactic assembly of suspects, perhaps the biggest cliché of all. As detective Lance O'Leary (that name should have been reconsidered), actor Purcell has nearly zero charisma, which unfortunately eliminates someone for the audience to identify with. And even the formidable Ann Sheridan is denied her usual pizazz. Only crotchety old Aunt Lucy (Dudgeon) projects real personality. What the movie does have going for it is a clever solution to the locked room.

The studios (here it's Warner Bros.) turned out hundreds of these competent little programmers year after year, a tribute to their professionalism. Of course, a whodunit like Mystery House would migrate later on to TV, especially to a series like Perry Mason (1957- 1966), where the suspects would assemble in a courtroom. Speaking of Mason, catch a sleek, young William Hopper years before his personable detective role on the Mason series.

All in all, the movie's main value may be in it's representative nature of what people went to see on a slow Saturday evening so many years ago.

I enjoyed this movie very much. Considering it is a B-movie, in my opinion, it is a good B-movie. It is based on the mystery novel "The Mystery of Hunting's End" by Mignon G. Eberhart, and the movie title "Mystery House" is very appropriate, since a group of people are gathered together in a house where a man was murdered. The acting by the entire cast is good. With the exception of Dick Purcell and Ann Sheridan, I was not familiar with any of them. It is a short movie, but there is much action in less than one hour. I would recommend this movie to anyone who is interested in a good mystery movie. The hour went by very fast.

Mystery House (1938)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Rare murder/mystery from Warner has a banker committing suicide but his daughter thinks he was murdered so she invites all the guests from that night back to the house hoping the killer will slip up. Only God knows how many of these "old dark house" films were made throughout the 1930s but this one here is pretty good due to some nice direction and a short running time that makes the film fly by. All of the characters are a lot of fun so this keeps the movie going as well. The ending comes out very well and the mystery is a good one.

When a rich banker is mysteriously killed, detective Lance O'Leary (Dick Purcell) is called out to a remote hunting lodge to investigate.

Mystery House is a typical cheap Warner Brothers mystery film. The plot has several gaping holes, but most of the actors are halfway decent. Star Dick Purcell would later become the first actor to play Captain America on screen. Ann Sheridan is rather wasted, but Elspeth Dudgeon (who had a very memorable role in The Old Dark House) is a hoot as the cantankerous aunt.

There's worse way to spend 56 minutes.

This high-speed version of one of Mignon Eberhardt's classically plotted mysteries is directed by Noel Smith, one of Warner's experts in short features, timing in at a bit less than one hour. Mr. Smith spent much of the 1930s and 1940s directing second feature westerns and mysteries.

Half a dozen people are isolated in a house while the detective tries to figure out which of them, all with excellent motives, committed the murder. This sort of mystery requires a tremendous amount of talking, and people talk fast. Unhappily, most of the dialogue is exposition and delivered a bit stiffly. Visually, it's very nicely done with some excellent tracking shots to maintain good composition and an overall look like an Old Dark House movie. The print, like many of the major studios' B movies of this period, is in excellent shape.

Over all, it's a pleasant way for mystery fans to spend an hour with a story that will keep you guessing until the end.