La casa della morte

Poverty row cheapie starring Lionel Atwill as a criminologist who tries to stop an innocent girl from being executed in the electric chair. Told through flashback, the story begins with Atwill befriending Doug Fowley's character, a scientist who's going to do big things someday but until then he has to make ends meet as the executioner at the state pen! He wants to marry Jean Parker but she refuses, having pretty strong opinions on capital punishment on account of her dearly departed dad being a criminal. Things get even more melodramatic when a guy who was blackmailing Jean winds up murdered and she's tried and convicted for the crime. If you guess that Fowley's job as executioner figures back into things, congratulations. On top of all this, Jean's sister is acting shady and doesn't seem all that broken up about Jean being fried extra crispy. Leave it to Lionel Atwill to solve everything, albeit taking his sweet time to do so. It's not a bad little B movie. Very cheap as you would expect from something made by PRC. But it's perfectly watchable and even curiously entertaining at points. Bonus points for excessive "wipes." A sure sign of a top-notch production.

It's an unusual storyline about an executioner who doesn't like his job, but this isn't any old executioner, or any old ordinary person that answered a job advertisement, this is a doctor, who took the job as executioner in order fund his research programme.

The backdrop to the story is that this is also a love story - a love story in which the executioner is faced with the difficult task of having to pull the switch on his fiance who has ended up in/on Death Row.

A storyline like this is much more than just sheer fantasy. It makes me wonder about the statement behind the movie. Every author wants their book to be a success, topped off by a movie contract. Every director wants his production to be a box office success that wins accolades & awards.

I conclude that: 'There's More Than One Way To Skin A Cat'. In this context, I mean 'the arts' have been used to make a statement, because this is no ordinary movie plot.

Okay B noirish film starring Lionel Atwill and Jean Parker.

Told primarily in flashbacks as she heads for the chair, Jean Parker is given a death sentence after being found guilty of murdering her blackmailer - supposedly in front of witnesses. She claims she is innocent, and indeed, the people who claim to have seen her only saw a silhouette behind a shade.

A criminologist (Lionel Atwill) attempts to find out the truth before it's too late. One other aspect - her boyfriend is the one who is supposed to pull the switch.

Nothing special but absorbing all the same.

One tip-off that this is basic poverty row is that when Lionel Atwill messes up his lines, there are no retakes.

Jean Parker is blackmailed because of a secret from her past. But when the blackmailer ends up dead on the floor, and some people saw this unfold through the window, Parker is arrested and ends up on death row. Shortly before all this happened, she met scientist researcher Douglas Fowley and criminologist Lionel Atwill, and Fowley fell in love with her. He also moonlights as the state executioner however. Atwill doesn't believe Parker is guilty, and thinks Parker's sister Marcia Mae Jones, whom he caught lying on the night of the murder, holds the key to finding the real killer.

The movie is told in flashback by Atwill as he recounts the story to some of his colleagues, using a letter Parker wrote shortly before walking to the chair. The actors do a decent job, altho Fowley is surprisingly stiff here.

Director Steve Sekely ('Hollow Triumph') and DoP Gus Peterson (ine one of his last movies, his credits go back to 1914!) knew how to quickly and effectively make movies, and it shows. It is told & shot in the typical fashion employed by the low-budget studios, PRC in this case, where pace and economics mattered more than logic (that is: if you have time to think about a plot hole while watching a movie, the movie needs more trimming). It doesn't have a lot of noir visuals, and the movie works better as a mystery, but it's a decent effort that does tick a few boxes.

It's not a movie that really demands multiple viewings, but as a quick time-waster, it holds up decently well. 6/10

Lady in the Death House I'm sure is a movie publicist's wet dream. Get this: A woman is condemned to die.. The executioner? Her BOYFRIEND! It's up to a criminologist, er, psychologist to figure out who really killed the shady friend of the prisoner's sister, AND has to get a hold of the Governor somehow Before It's Too Late! This movie is somewhat fun, but fairly predictable, Jean Parker as the lady in question and Lionel Atwill are good here, but nothing really remarkable. The most fun is watching the little bit of suspense at the end with the governor and all. I mean, shouldn't he be AVAILIBLE for last minute clemency phone calls and what have you instead of ordering Denver Sandwiches ("smothered in onions!"). They should have had a shot of the onions frying, THAT would have been clever.