La taverne maudite

The Rogues Tavern starts out promisingly: an opening scene features a nearly silent, deliberately-paced panning shot of the hotel commons area and its various guests, all sitting quietly. The camera pauses on each face or silent group, finally closing in on Joan Woodbury reading cards and delivering a fortune to a fellow guest—a reading that ends suddenly when she turns up the ace of spades, the card of death! It's a wonderfully atmospheric setup that promises a spooky tale of hidden motives and secretive characters, possibly with a touch of the supernatural mixed in.

Alas, along come Wallace Ford and Barbara Pepper as a pair of runaway department store detectives who have apparently eloped with no better plan than to run off into the night hoping vaguely to find a justice of the peace and a hotel room (or, as Ford's character notes, if the justice doesn't show up, then they'll need two rooms).

The rest of the show isn't bad; it just doesn't move fast enough or create enough suspense to keep me from noticing that...well, for example, that Joan Woodbury is wasted for the rest of the movie. Instead of developing her character as a sort of mystic (real or phony), she is given nothing to do but just wring her hands a lot and say thing like, "We're all doomed!" Or from noticing that Wallace Ford is too confident by half in his detecting skills, and heroine Barbara Pepper is too polite to him by more than half. (Why doesn't she smack him when she's got an important clue and he tells her to leave him alone and won't listen?)

Still, there is some atmosphere to be enjoyed here. And it's not every mystery criminal who frames a friendly dog for murder. The murderer also gets in some fun evil cackles in the climactic scene when preparing to finish off the remaining guests in one fell swoop. Yes—fans of evil cackles should not miss this one.

Here we are again. In an old dark house (hotel, tavern, inn), where a group of jewel robbers are hiding out. A detective and his not-so-dumb blond fiancée show up to meet a justice of the peace. Meanwhile a murder is committed. A throat torn out, supposedly by a wolf-dog, who generally is tethered outside the tavern. There is a lot of byplay, with even an invalid man coming under suspicion. Others begin to get bumped off as well. People come and go. Suspicious characters and policemen and a cast of several investigate. Make sure you think of everyone as a suspect. There is pretty good humor and a little slapstick. The detective is so dense, it makes you wonder if he could find his hat in a closet. He doesn't listen to anyone, but at times seems pretty lucid. Anyway, there is nothing new or remarkable about this film, but it is fun and the conclusion is worth the wait.

A honeymooning couple arrive at a tavern only to become embroiled in a series of murders involving a group of very suspicious guests. It seems as if the killings are being committed by a vicious dog.

Rogue's Tavern is yet another in the cycle of Poverty Row whodunits. There were an awful lot of these in the 30's. Like most of these films, this one involves events set exclusively in an old dark house. To be fair, this is one of the slightly better one's I have seen. Its mystery is reasonable enough; while it's climatic reveal scene was actually pretty good. For such a limited movie sub-genre you really have to make the most of any plus points. And at the very least this one more-or-less works and doesn't bog things down with much lame humour, which others seemed to do. All-in-all, not bad for this kind of thing.

A hard to find movie that was originally distributed by Puritan Pictures. This is a borderline Old Dark House movie. It takes place at the Red Rock Tavern, which is an old dark hotel; there's a thunderstorm & three murders, & the lights do go out, but no secret passageways. Nice humorous touches, especially in the interchanges between Wallace Ford's character & his fiancee, played by Barbara Pepper (who has her Mae West expressions down pat). Joan Woodbury plays a strange character with many premonitions; the director seems fascinated by Joan, & the camera often isolates her in unusual closeups that lose sight of the rest of the cast & the backdrops. A watchable film, especially for Old Dark House fans, but not a great one by any means. I rate it 4/10.

The Rogues' Tavern (1936)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Another film in the long line of "old dark house" or "murder-mysteries" as Jimmy (Wallace Ford) and his fiancé Marjorie (Barbara Pepper) show up at an old hotel to get married but there's no Justice of the Peace. Instead they find a dead body and a bunch of suspects and soon the threat of more deaths is hanging over everyone so Jimmy must try to solve the case.

THE ROGUES' TAVERN isn't the greatest movie ever made but it's certainly interesting enough to keep you entertained throughout its 69 minute running time. If you're familiar with these types of films then you already know that it seems there were at least a hundred of them released throughout the 1930s. Everything from killer gorillas to killer madmen to wack job women were suspects and each one always featured various objects that kept them all familiar. It could be trapped doors, the whole thunder spells and usually there was a man and woman team solving them.

This film at least has a pretty good cast including Ford. He worked in a various of film genres but he makes for a good lead her as he's quite charming and manages to hold your attention. Pepper, Joan Woodbury and Clara Kimball Young are also good in their roles. The direction here isn't anything overly special but at the film moves at a nice pace and there aren't any major issues. The ending is quite nice, although I must admit that the shot of the possible victims faces before and after the killer is identified was quite funny.