La taverne maudite

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.

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.

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.

"A collection of travelers has gathered at the 'Red Rock Tavern', an old hotel, during a thunderstorm. All arriving for different reasons, the group is suddenly drawn together by the murder of one of the guests. Two store detectives staying at the hotel try to solve the case as other bodies turn up and the terror increases with each passing moment," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.

An eclectic cast makes this "old dark house" variation fairly entertaining, albeit structurally flawed. The leading man and woman are "store detectives" Wallace Ford (as Jimmy Kelly) and Barbara Pepper (as Marjorie Burns). But, the real treat is seeing former silent film superstar Clara Kimball Young (as Mrs. Jamison), in one of her more meaty later year roles. The matronly Ms. Young was one of the biggest stars in films during 1913-1919, and she still has her way with the camera.

***** The Rogues Tavern (1936) Robert F. Hill ~ Wallace Ford, Barbara Pepper, Clara Kimball Young

As the other writer said, this is a "borderline Old House" film, but I feel that he under-rated it. The business about a "mad dog" doing all the killing is very unusual. Despite what he says, the "closeups of Joan Woodbury" are only done ONCE or TWICE. She is the "mystic" who is constantly predicting death to all present, and the closeups of her eyes are supposed to lend to the eeriness of the film. A VERY intersting film, if a bit melodramatic in parts! Check it out!

Norm