The Scotland Yard Mystery

This film, as many did at the time, had a title change upon arriving on the US shores. It was re-tilted "The Living Dead". The original British title barely wins in a squeaker as the better one and neither is really apt. There is no mystery in this film. The criminal mastermind is revealed within the first ten minutes and it then operates as a suspense picture, and not a bad one.

Sir Gerald du Maurier in one of his few film appearances is the Commissioner and George Curzon is the criminal mastermind, using a job as a police doctor to get inside information on an insurance scam he is running. It is similar in ways to "Dark Eyes of London", the Edgar Wallace tale that followed to the screen five year later. Curzon's doctor has developed a serum that puts people in a death-like state. Once "dead", they can collect their life insurance money and he gets his share. There are plenty of plot holes that are left untied at the end, but it is an entertaining film with a few horror overtones to somewhat justify the horror-inspired title it had in the US.

Du Maurier is quite good in his role. It is said his performance of Captain Hook on the British stage is what inspired a very young Boris Karloff to become an actor. It is easy to see why. Du Maurier has a very reserved style and gives the best performance in the picture. Right behind him is Curzon as a very sinister villain who seems to be able to look at himself in the third person as he very elaborately tries to escape in the end. The pace and camera-work are good and this is entertaining for fans of this era's suspense films. If you're looking for horror you might be a bit disappointed - there are only two brief graveyard sequences.

This film was called THE Scotland YARD MYSTERY in Britain and THE LIVING DEAD in America. IMDb is incorrect in saying of the film that 'A mad scientist devises a formula that puts people into a zombie-like trance to do his bidding'. It is not a mad scientist who misbehaves, it is a criminal medical doctor named Dr. Masters, played with an insidious, brazen and unctuous arrogance by George Curzon. Nor does he put people into a zombie-like trance, and nor is the film anything whatever to do with hypnosis or trances. Curzon is a medical adviser to Scotland Yard. Unknown to his law enforcement friends, he runs a secret racket whereby he injects certain people with a serum he has devised which puts them into a state of catalepsy, where they appear to be dead. He then can revive them with a counter-serum later. He uses this technique to fake people's deaths and claim on their life insurance. The star of the film is Gerald du Maurier, who plays Commissioner Stanton of the Yard. Du Maurier was the son of George du Maurier, who wrote the famous novel TRILBY and introduced the world to his sinister character Svengali. (That novel has been filmed many times under various titles.) Gerald was also the father of Daphne du Maurier, who wrote REBECCA and many other famous novels, which have been made into many films over the years and are too well known to require mentioning. Gerald was a famous stage actor who only made nine feature films and one short, few of which I believe survive. This film was released in 1934, the year he died, aged only 61. (Daphne was 27 at that time.) It is good to see Gerald at work, as he was a masterful screen presence, of which so little evidence exists today. I would hate to think of him becoming forgotten. This film is creaky because of its age, but it is a good 'un.