Le spectre vert

On a foggy night in London, five men are strangled. Four die but the fifth (Roland Young) escapes. Turns out the men all served together in the same regiment years before. Now Scotland Yard gathers the other men from the regiment together at Young's house to figure out the killer.

Nice old dark house mystery with a creepy pre-credits ghost and effective opening few minutes. This was directed by Lionel Barrymore. He only directed a handful of movies and nothing past 1931. Which is a shame because, if this is any indication, he had talent as a director. It does creak some, being an early talkie, but it's still worth checking out. Boris Karloff has an uncredited part as a Hindu lawyer named Abdul. I love Karloff but this is one of his worst performances. He's so over the top you just have to see it for yourself.

With death stalking the darkness, members of a doomed regiment spend THE UNHOLY NIGHT in an old mansion seeking a murderer.

Fine atmospherics and good performances propel this creaky creeper from the very early days of talking pictures. The opening sequence ably depicts the oppressive emotional weight of an extreme London fog. The remainder of the film becomes an Old Dark House picture, with the cast claustrophobically caught in the clutches of a clever killer.

Owlish Roland Young does very well as the gentle nobleman whose grand home becomes a house of horrors. Appreciated for his comedic abilities, Young shows he's equally adept at more serious drama. Ernest Torrence--a very enjoyable character actor of the era whose career was cut short by an early death--plays the friendly doctor trying to deal with the brutal deaths. Lovely Natalie Moorhead portrays Young's sister, a woman fascinated by the supernatural. Dorothy Sebastian appears as a beautiful & mysterious lady from the East with a strange story to tell.

Blustery Major Lionel Belmore, and John Miljan as a badly scarred Major, are two of the 'Doomed Regiment.' Polly Moran has a few good moments as a frightened maid. Exotic Sojin is most effective as a Chinese mystic.

Movie mavens will easily recognize an unbilled Boris Karloff appearing as a sinister Turkish lawyer.

Director Lionel Barrymore makes good use of the new sound technology with a few well placed screams and some hearty singing from the officers of the regiment.

As in have patience AND determination with this one. Lord Montague (Roland Young) is walking through the London fog when someone comes up behind him and attempts to kill him by strangulation. He is found by a cop and brought to Scotland Yard where he learns that five of the members of his old WWI regiment have died by strangulation in the foggy streets of London that very day.

A plan is made by the Yard by which all of the living members of the regiment gather at Montague's estate - in uniform - under the guise of a reunion, in hope of smoking out a killer. Later that night a motive arrives. First, another member of the regiment, Mallory, is found dead in Montague's home. Next a mysterious woman bursts in on the gathering and passes out. Finally, Boris Karloff, as a lawyer, comes to tell the surviving member of the regiment that one member that they sentenced to death for cowardice, but escaped and made a fortune in Asia, has died and plans to punish them all by his will. Half his money he leaves to his daughter - the mysterious woman who burst in (Dorothy Sebastian). The other half is divided among those members of the regiment who survive to the next day when the will is probated. Thus they will have a motive to kill each other in hopes of getting the entire fortune available - one million pounds. That would be like thirty million dollars today. Creepy complications ensue.

The actual story, as it completely plays out, is very clever and morbid. The problem is in the execution. Everybody talks in that early talkie halting speech, sometimes launching into monologues that have nothing to do with what is going on and aren't that interesting to begin with. With some expert editing of dialogue and presentation this thing could have been cut down by at least 20 minutes without losing anything. Dorothy Sebastian surprised me as the exotic girl. For somebody with an almost insurmountable southern accent, she acquitted herself marvelously.

This film with its seances, and people all wondering which one was the murderer somewhat reminded me of "The 13th Chair" made the same year. Strangely enough, the most mysterious character in that film was Bela Lugosi where here it was Boris Karloff, a couple of years before their professional fates intertwine. Recommended for the film history buff.

THE STORY & GENRE -- Someone is murdering members of the old army regiment. Real hypnotic power, phony seance and ghosts. Lionel Barrymore directs. Roland Young, Boris Karloff star.

THE VERDICT -- Great atmosphere but very talky, and could've been wrapped up in an hour.

FREE ONLINE -- Yes, 93 minutes (TCM print commonly), sound. Silent version does not appear to have survived.

This is one of the earliest talkie whodunits; it still holds up quite well. It has a clever plot (sort of a precursor to Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None"), some impressive tracking shots, and a striking séance climax. Dorothy Sebastian is hot; Boris Karloff (in a thankfully, in this case, minor role) is ridiculously hammy; the rest of the cast is fine, if not terribly distinctive. **1/2 out of 4.