Inner Sanctum

Inner Sanctum (1948)

A short, bizarre, surprisingly captivating film. It's totally Twilight Zone when you get to the last two minutes, so hang in there for the hour before that. It has a noir quality that makes it moody, and it has some truly artsy expressionist segments montaged in during the flood, partly as psychological metaphor. The director, Lew Landers, has an astonishing 100 plus movies and a lot of early television to his name, and I'm guessing there are some other sterling moments among them.

But for the moment we have Inner Sanctum. There is a candid, campy acting throughout that's fresh and entertaining, from the boy who's a convincing sweetie to the reporter who's a total bumbling hoot (watch him cheat at checkers). If it borders on deliberate comedy at times, it's more sustained by its tone of utter innocence among the townspeople, so they joke and make odd comments exactly the way real people would. The candid quality is at odds with the one rather stiff character, the lead man, who carries some kind of weight around beyond even his crime. Such is the film noir lead at its archetypal best, and this is from the height of post-war noir.

So, a great movie it isn't but a movie with great qualities it is. No joke.

A man (Charles Russell) accidentally kills his fiancée as he exits a train. Just as the train pulls out, he drops her body on the rear platform. No one saw him do it, but someone does see him at the otherwise deserted station: a mischievous, freckle-faced boy. Later, he's walking along a road when the town's newspaper editor stops and gives him a lift. The editor tells his passenger that a flood has washed out the bridge. For now, there's no way out of town, so he takes the stranger to a boarding house. Fate decrees that of all houses, this is the one where the boy lives. The boy thinks he recognizes the new boarder. The new boarder thinks it's time to get rid of the boy. And a sexy blonde (Mary Beth Hughes) living at the house thinks it's time to run off with a man she knows is a murderer.

"Inner Sanctum" is a stand-alone film based on the radio series of the same name. That program was also the basis for Universal's godawful movie series, starring Lon Chaney, Jr., that had ended just two years before. "Inner Sanctum" is nothing like those films and much better. The story is efficiently told with sharp dialogue, an excellent framing device and good performances. Everyone involved worked well within the constraints of a small budget; and the movie remains an entertaining thriller that fits snugly into the latterly-invented genre of Film Noir.

In the style of Edgar G. Ulmer's Detour, Inner Sanctum is a cheap little film noir, and one that gains all of it's successes from its plot rather any technical elements. The main problem with this film, therefore, is simply that there isn't enough of it; and while the plot and characters that we get introduced to are good, they could have been a whole lot better if the film had more of a budget to play with. The plot focuses on the idea of guilt and its effect on a man that has killed someone. We follow Harold Dunlap, a man that decides to stay at a boarding house after killing a woman at a near-by station. The plot focuses on the interloper, as well as the people already living at the house; and all the thrills are garnered through that. The film is tense and exciting, and it's also a good indication of how times have changed; I mean, would you let your kid sleep in a room that is currently being inhabited by a male guest that you've only just met? Well, you would if it was this kid; as Inner Sanctum features what is probably the most irritating child performance of all time. But aside from that, the cast is strong and the film is well directed by Lew Landers, who also directed Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff in The Raven some years earlier. Recommended to noir fans.

A psychic predicts that a sultry young blonde will meet with tragedy on a train...A handsome young man murders his wife, then takes refuge in a sleepy small town...A young boy witnesses the murder but keeps it a secret... The blonde, the young man, and the boy all wind up in the same boarding house, sharing close quarters, and trying to cover-up their unsettling secrets. Plot turns and twists ensue, building to a shattering, unexpected climax.

Superior, low-budget 'film noir,' quietly but steadily gripping the viewer with unusually subtle characterizations and solid acting. Amazingly "adult" for its time. The ravishing Mary Beth Hughes and the charismatic Charles Russell strike palpable erotic sparks. And the relationship between Russell and the young lad who witnessed his crime but hero-worships him all the same has implicit "homoerotic" undertones that must have eluded the napping censors.

Running a mere 52 minutes, "Inner Sanctum" was easily sandwiched into local TV stations in the late '50s in 60-minute-including-commercials slots.

It has long since disappeared into obscurity and deserves a cable-TV or VHS revival and restoral. The notion of doing an updated, R-rated remake is tempting but should be avoided. This little-known treasure is perfect just as it is.

'Inner Sanctum' is, although quite interesting and thrilling, wasted opportunity as quality film-noir. The film opens with a scene on a train where elegantly dressed woman meets Dr. Valonius (Fritz Leiber) who tells her the story about woman being killed be her fiancee. We then are thrown in the story in the midst of the killing scene. Harold Dunlap (Charles Russell) accidentally kills the woman who's attacking him. He is shocked by his deed, and rids himself from the body by throwing it on the back of the departing train. Unfortunately, young kid Mike (Dale Belding) sees Harold dumping the package on the train. Harold tries to flee the small town, but all the roads are closed because of the floods. He is picked up by local newspaperman McFee (Billy House), who drops him off at the boarding house ran by his close friend Mrs. Mitchell (Nana Bryant). In there Harold meets a young woman Jean (Mary Beth Hughes), who herself with a shaded past, starts to feel immediate sympathy towards mysterious Harold. Unfortunately, in the same house lives the boy Mike with his mother, and when the stories about the dead woman found on the train, reach the town, Mike starts to but one and one together.

The film has nice eerie atmosphere, and the story inside the story is interesting with Dr. Valonius storyline drawing nice circle around the main plot and neatly tying the knots. But the film seems bit rushed, as the director haven't allowed the psychological tension between the character grow enough. Otherwise neat little film-noir that manages to keep the viewer interested enough to sit through barely over an hour running time.