The House of Fear (1939)

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Satisfactory B comic melodrama involves warnings from a murdered man for a company of actors gathered at the theater where he was killed not to continue with the play that they are rehearsing. It's up to novice producer William Gargan (really a detective) to find out what's up, dealing with the usual theatrical eccentrics of varying egos, some of them rather suspicious in character. The dead man's voice even haunts the company through a radio show, and certain incidents turn the theater into a haunted house giving more reason to keep that ghost light on. At just over an hour, this film rushes by, often comical, sometimes annoying (El Brendel's cloying Swedish accent), suspenseful in the quiet shadows, and acceptable for its mysterious atmosphere. Jan Duggan gets the bulk of subtle laughs as a hammy character actress, with Dorothy Arnold and Irene Hervey trading barbs as rival leading ladies. It's obvious to me that each plot move is carefully mapped out, making each twist seem deliberately written and not often fresh or natural. But as B movies go, this is nonstop thrills and some surprising laughs which will keep you involved.

I watch these old mysteries not because I expect to find a good one. They rarely are, but often you can see a free art experimenting with different cinematic tricks while no one yet had a settled cinematic vocabulary. And here is a good one.This is a mystery about the murder of a ruthless radio reporter. We see the murder occur just as he is about to make an announcement that will ruin some innocent people. Oh, but wait. A few moments later we learn that what we have seen is a play, a play within the movie.In fact, the movie itself is an adaptation of a play. Essentially all the action occurs in a theater. To fully appreciate this, you need to know that the mystery genre made its leap from cheap paperbacks to movies via radio. That first scene where things slide effortlessly is not as sophisticated as say, The French Lieutenant's Woman. But it is more impressive for the time. As the story goes on, it becomes more ordinary, but I'll mark this opening as a milestone in a nesting vocabulary.

Universal's 1929 part-talkie "The Last Warning," the last film for director Paul Leni (1927's silent "The Cat and the Canary") was long thought to be a lost film, and while it remains superior to this 1939 remake, "The House of Fear," the latter need not lower its head in shame. Actor John Woodford (Donald Douglas) dies during his latest performance of the play "Dangerous Currents," in the very theatre named for Woodford himself. The police assume it's just a publicity stunt when the body disappears from Woodford's dressing room, and the case remains open for 2 years, with no solution and no corpse. Arthur McHugh (William Gargan), a detective posing as a Broadway producer, decides to bring together the original cast to repeat their performance of "Dangerous Currents," despite the rumors that the theatre is haunted by Woodford's ghost, who communicates with McHugh through a dead phone line. Also, there is one supremely eerie encounter with a spectre in the darkened theatre, and this too cannot be explained away, so there may actually be a genuine haunting. Both actresses stand out: lovely Irene Hervey (who starred in Lugosi's 1942 "Night Monster") plays Woodford's leading lady, and Dorothy Arnold (who co-starred with Lugosi in the 1939 serial "The Phantom Creeps") is the sluttish golddigger. Fast paced, many twists and turns, and consistently witty dialogue (especially Alan Dinehart); a vastly underrated Universal mystery which is too often confused with the studio's 1945 Sherlock Holmes release, plus its 'Crime Club' series, a total of 7 features that ran from 1937-1939. German director Joe May would follow this with "The Invisible Man Returns" and "The House of the Seven Gables," both 1940 releases featuring Vincent Price. "The House of Fear" made three appearances on Pittsburgh's Chiller Theater: March 22 1975 (between "The Ghost of Frankenstein" and "Horror Island"), Dec 17 1977 (following "Cult of the Cobra"), and July 2 1983 (solo).

House of Fear, The (1939) ** (out of 4) Lazy, routine and by the numbers remake of The Last Warning from Universal. The story is pretty much the same as an actor gets murdered during a performance and then years later the cast is brought back together to try and trap the killer. This certainly sinks to the "C" level in Universal's library and it comes off very lazy compared to the original film. Several scenes are redone here but they don't come off nearly as good as the original film. The cast is also rather boring and bland but the 67-minute running time does go by fast.