UnowPriceless hyped garbage

Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

bnwfilmbuff George Zucco and Lionel Atwell in a thriller - how can you go wrong? This highly atmospheric and dark drama features a good cast but a weak script and uneven direction drag it down. The plot is solid and complex: Zucco is freshly out of prison, wrongly serving time for embezzlement, and invites his accusers for supposedly a dinner of reconciliation at his island home. Additionally, he suspects one of the invitees of having murdered his wife. Unfortunately, any time that some tension starts to build, director Morse seemed driven to relieve it with the ill-timed interjection of the love interest between Zucco's step daughter, shapely Sharon Douglas, and the son of one of the deceased invitees. At just a little over 68 minutes long there isn't much time for character development or allowing some of the eerier aspects of the film to play out like the séance or exploration of the secret passages. Still it's watchable but could have been much better with a little more budget and better direction.

dougdoepke Wow, Atwill and Zucco together at last. I was expecting crackling transformers, electrical arcs, and monsters galore. No such luck. They do have one minor face-off, but I don't think the producers knew what sinister potential they had in these two veteran madmen.It's a typical PRC cheap budget— a big drawing room, some secret passages, and an underground room that becomes a swimming pool at inconvenient times. And that's about it. The plot's supposed to be about an island host (Zucco) using a ruse to get people who wronged him onto his island as guests so he can get revenge. Maybe the premise is not very original, but it does have potential. Trouble is there's very little development producing either suspense or mystery. Mostly, it's scattered dialog and playing hide and seek in semi-darkness. In short, the narrative's a series of individual occurrences that fail to build beyond themselves. Thus, we're left with a few interesting set-ups but little more. Too bad. Oh yes, mustn't forget not just one spider woman, but two—Borg and DeWit. Both are tall, forceful, and attractive. Like Zucco & Atwill, they do have one minor face-off, but I guess I was hoping for an all-out catfight, or more aptly a lioness fight. Now that would have been memorable. Anyway, the film does have its moments, but fails to cohere into anything more.

GManfred A creepy old house on an island shrouded in fog, a handful of suspects (victims?) and George Zucco and Lionel Atwill together on the same screen - what else could we B fans ask for? Well, for starters, we could ask for a better script, a few less holes in the plot and a better love interest twosome than Sharon Douglas and John Whitney, who nearly sinks the picture all by himself with a very poor acting job.I have to think this story worked better on the stage as the director here couldn't bring it off on screen. But if you go with it and make generous allowances for the proceedings it will work for you.Plus - did you ever think you could ever see Zucco and Atwill in the same picture? They are here - for the first and maybe only time! Now that's worth the price of admission! All you have to do is overlook the small details.

Terrell-4 A pen for Emiline Bronson.A small book of multiplication tables for John Kavanaugh. A toy skull for Sylvia Jordan.A chisel for Alec Richfield. A knife for Jeff Kingsley. And a key for Gail, whose last name we never learn. These are party favors from Leo Grainger, a failed financier whose associates framed him with a fraud rap. He was sent to jail for five years. And someone murdered his rich wife. This night they are all gathered on Fog Island in Grainger's hulking mansion, amidst fog so thick you can lean against it. Grainger invited them with hints that from the money he was convicted of stealing, a fortune still remains buried somewhere in the mansion. However, Jeff Kingsley turns out to be the innocent son of one of the conspirators, a man who has died recently. And Gail is Leo Grainger's stepdaughter, a young woman who seems pouty and resentful, yet who appears to have respect for her stepfather. During this long night, Leo Grainger's party favors will lead to retribution and horrible death. For fans of low-budget Forties' movies, especially those which feature mystery, death and strange animals, human and otherwise, roaming the moors, two names stand high in the pantheon of actors who deliver the goods: George Zucco and Lionel Atwill. They were born within a year of each other in England, Zucco in 1886 and Atwill in 1885. Both had distinguished stage careers. Zucco left Britain for Hollywood in 1935. Atwill arrived in America in 1915. Atwill was so confident and assured as an actor that it was easy to overlook how hammy he could be. Zucco's mad glare made it easy to overlook how good an actor he was, and how avuncular and reassuring he could be as a good guy. Both settled into strong character parts in the Thirties, often in A-level movies, and both, for different reasons, ended up in more and more low-budget mystery and horror programmers in the Forties...Zucco because as he got older he began to accept any roles offered to him; Atwill because he was involved in a scandal and could only find work in low-budget cheapies. Fog Island is fun because it is one of the few films the two actors appear in together. Zucco is Leo Grainger, a man who will have his retribution. Atwill is Alec Richfield, one of the instigators of Leo's downfall and a prime suspect in the death of Leo's wife. The third major player, of course, is the glowering mansion set on this isolated island. We quickly learn, as Leo goes about setting his traps, that some of his guests are going to encounter the dank lower chambers carved in the living rock, rooms with hidden doors, pits covered with disguised lids and one water-tight room, deep in the bowels of the island, where horri...well, you need to see the movie. The film features some barely adequate acting, gloomy and surprisingly rich-looking interiors, a lot of obviously one-take scenes, as well as a suspicious looking butler. And among the cast is that tall, blond specialist in dames you shouldn't trust, Veda Ann Borg. Those fans of low-budget programmers like me miss her.