Inner Sanctum (1948)

Overrated and overhyped

Lack of good storyline.

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Here is another film (similar to 1939's Trunk Crime) which, in the hands of Hitchcock, could have been much better: and old guy on a train relays to a passenger the story of a man who killed his girlfriend in the darkness on a train platform, taking refuge in a boarding house, only to find that a small boy who witnessed the killing also lives in the same boarding house. The kid can't quite place where he knows the guy from, and the killer obviously will do anything to keep the kid quite.Effective lighting and shadowy look to the film help overall, but I can't figure out why the bizarre framing device of having the story being seemingly relayed in flashback by the old guy, only to actually begin at the end of the film? The old man says that he "had a disagreement with a watchmaker" and has "boycotted time-pieces ever since", so, does that somehow give him the ability to see into the future? Or was this just a badly planned gimmick film? The little kid is effective in some scenes, and silly in others, especially with that stupid hat with the propeller on it; a better actor in that particular role would have helped considerably.

I caught this B film noir quickie on a public domain DVD too, and it held my interest for it's brief running time. Handsome but sinister-looking Charles Russell is the killer on the run from the law who hides out in a small-town boarding house. Trouble is, the only witness to his crime (murdering a woman at a train station, then putting the body on the departing train) is a young boy who is the son of the widowed owner of the boarding house! The kid idolises him first, then grows to fear him as he realises that the nice guy he met at the station is really a killer. The blonde, sultry niece wants him too, but for other reasons.It all runs along neatly, as well as can be expected for a B feature. Russell becomes genuinely frightening as we realise he will do anything to shut the kid up. The real interest of the film, however, is in the beginning and ending. It seems at first as if the events of the film are a flashback, as a pretty young woman listens to a fortune-teller not to hop off the train. But, after we've seen Russell's tale, we go back to the train scene, and we actually end up at the beginning again. The woman listening to the story runs off the train, ignoring the fortune-teller, to her death. But why? Is she so enthralled by his tale that she somehow wants it to happen to her? Is she so spooked that she thinks Russell has already killed someone (he hasn't)? She doesn't know him from a bar of soap, and the poor guy really does seem to have had fate tap him on the shoulder. But is he a ruthless bastard anyway, with his treatment of the innocent young boy? Hmm, fascinating

INNER … is exactly what it promises to be--yet somewhat better. Mrs. Hughes and Russell are good and even, though morally objectionable, likable leads. It's made with some sense of economy, varied and suspenseful. The supporting characters are well sketched. INNER … starts confusingly, with a succession of scenes given backwards (the descending from the car, THEN the picking, AND THEN the railway station episode); anyway, the device is nice. For its time, INNER … is disturbingly violent; the atmosphere is caught with great gusto, and, if Russell's character remains unexplored and unexplained, blank, as it were, he nevertheless functions in the flick. Thou may not like this kind of movies, so unpretentious and modest; but you can not ask them to be something they are not meant to be.

This rather dark film noir with its uneasy comics (Roscoe Ates, Nana Bryant, and Billy House who even repeats his checkers trick from The Stranger) and desperate heroine (Mary Beth Hughes), is further strengthened by the forceful performance of Charles Russell who manages to make his rather ambivalent drifter somewhat sympathetic. Admittedly, he is helped in this goal by the obnoxious loudmouth and light-on-brains Mike, who, whether by accident or design, is made even more repulsive than the screenplay requires by the over-enthusiastic acting of Dale Belding. Fortunately, when the script gives her a chance, Mary Beth Hughes comes to the rescue with her animated portrait of the girl who wants to escape her small town "prison".In keeping with the nocturnal atmosphere of the radio series, most of the action takes place at night. However, although the picture is big on atmosphere, despite its obviously limited budget, it is somewhat deficient in characterization and motivation. The screenplay overstates the one-dimensional comic interludes, but dwells little on the forces that drive the main characters. Why does Russell murder the girl? Is it an accident? Self-defense? The script hints at these factors. But why hint? And what is the background to this meeting? So many questions remain unanswered.