La taverne maudite

Dancing around the code a couple of Store detectives shop up at a tavern on a dark and stormy night looking for a justice of the peace to marry them. Unfortunately for them the Justice hasn't arrived but a hotel full of people have, as has a murderer.

This is a good is a tiny bit slow (Due more to lack of music than plotting)thriller. This is a movie that for a while operates like Ten Little Indians as several of the guests are killed by a wolf dog, or so we are to believe.

The mystery is thick and its not entirely fair however the dialog is snappy and a joy to listen to. There are sliding panels and weird happenings and everything you could want from an old dark house mystery.

No its not perfect but it is fun.

If you get the chance watch it, preferably on a dark and stormy night....when the wolves are howling outside....

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.

Wallace Ford and Barbara Pepper are a pair of eloping store detectives and Ford is most proud of the fact that he does have the title of detective. When they check into an out of season inn waiting for a justice of the peace to arrive three murders occur among the guests and Ford decides to investigate. The rest take it on face value that he's law enforcement.

This is not too bad a film for a poverty row product. The cheapness of the sets even adds some value to the atmosphere the director wanted to create.

As it turns out Ford and Pepper are the outsiders in more ways than one. All the guests have been summoned to this place the way Agatha Christie summoned her victims in Ten Little Indians.

I can't reveal the murderer by praising the cast member's performance by name, but I will say the scene where all is revealed is one for the books. What a piece of scenery chewing.

Cheap though Rogues Tavern is I think you'll enjoy it.

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.