The Terror

People who complain about the predictability of this film miss the quality. Just as with a sonnet you can expect a number of lines and syllables, and some occasional tweaking of the language to fit, so you can expect style and structure fitting a well rehearsed pattern. You have the gothic mansion, a former monastery, with secret doors and passages, an organ playing in the night (no one operating the bellows) and a detached but eerie chapel. The place is a guest house/ private house with a staff including Irene Handel as kitchen maid, Kathleen Harrison as the house maid playing the sorts of parts they played for decades. There is a lost £300,000 in stolen gold, two gaolbirds who, after ten years, waaant to recover it, and get the organiser of the gang who betrayed them. Star turns are Alistair Sim as a crook disguised as a dotty vicar, and James Bond's 'M' as a serial drunk. A number of murders and the melodramatic denouement complete the early 20th century stage play, transferred to film. The style of acting reminds us that several of the performers were already on stage when Victoria died, and the elocution and style were necessary to project across large audiences before sound films came along. The formula for a stage play is all there, including the expected 'crisis'. Worth a watch.

If you can't recognise who that is chuckling at the start and later on you shouldn't be watching this film in the first place, since you've probably also never seen any of the screen versions of Edgar Wallace's 'The Ringer' (such as 'The Gaunt Stranger', which opened just a few months later).

Although billed sixth, Alistair Sim has a showy part impersonating a clergyman; and its ironic to see a relatively young Bernard Lee spending most of the film pretending to be sozzled, since by the time he'd become well-known as 'M' in the James Bond films he was required to pretend that he wasn't. (Ditto Wilfrid Lawson, who even then visibly has to make an effort simply to walk in a straight line.)

The ending is an absolute riot!!

As to whom can roll their eyes most.This is a typical Edgar Eallace thriller with a rather predictable plot and climax.A good cast helps make this entertaining.

Three men steal £300,000 in gold by staging a robbery. Two of them are caught and sentenced to 10 years each in prison while the criminal mastermind escapes with the fortune. Upon their release both men seek their share. From the pen of Edgar Wallace this is a crime thriller/drama but with added horror elements, the latter being what attracted me to watching it. Much of the film takes place at creaky Monk's Hall Priory. There is a monks tomb in the grounds, at night organ music can be heard and a ghostly, hooded figure seen. Insanity also plays a part. It is rather delightfully acted and fans of 1930's movies won't be disappointed. Through in some humour, a decent final reveal and a dash of romance and you get a fairly enjoyable 70 minutes.

The Terror (1938)

** (out of 4)

Three thieves rob a shipment of gold and two of them are sent to prison for a decade. After the two are released they travel to a creepy old house to track down the man who turned them in and hope to find some of the treasure.

Edgar Wallace wrote the play that this here is based on. There are a couple interesting things in THE TERROR but sadly it's another British film that has way too much talk and boring talk at that. The main reason most people are going to want to watch this is because of the actors who appear here. You've got Bernard Lee from James Bond fame playing a drunk and Alastair Sim playing one of the convicts. Sherlock Holmes fans will also note Arthur Wontner in the cast.

The actual story is decent but there's no question that this "old dark house" movie just runs way too slow for its own good and even at just 70 minutes it feels rather long. It doesn't help that the majority of the dialogue is just downright boring and there's really no energy from the direction. The cast and genre might attract some to THE TERROR but there's certainly much better out there.