FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Derrick Gibbons An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Robert J. Maxwell It's a run-of-the-mill suspense story with a couple of curious quirks. While on a fishing trip, young Jimmy Lydon has a terrible dream that's all confused but apparently has something to do with a strange man taking the place of his recently deceased father, a bracelet as a gift, a train, and a Schumann piano concerto.By the way, I must remark that this kid's dreams are not nearly as nebulous as mine, where one character can easily become another, the lighting is too dark to see much, nobody pays any attention to me, and people and things go about their business as if I weren't there. The sex dreams are kind of fun, doctor, except when the censor brings in those furry little lemurs or whatever they are, but at least I'm spared the horror of being chased in slow motion through a vat of molasses by some unseen ghoul, which once bothered me a lot. Whew.Disturbed, Lydon rushes home to find that Warren William has been courting his mother. William is a real charmer too -- polite, generous -- and everybody likes him, even Lydon's sister.So far, it's no more than a decently directed suspenser. But it does have its oddities. In "Detour", Edgar J. Ulmer allowed an allusion to a pair of sabers from the Franco-Prussian War. (The Franco-Prussian War?) Here, between letting Hamlet peep through the arras once in a while, he's got Schumann's concerto playing a role in the mounting Angst. Schumann? Not even Schubert, but Schumann? The composition gets a little nightmarish, true, but lots of composers composed nightmares.There are two villains. Dr. Mulbach is a psychiatrist who helps Warren William in his attempt to marry, then dispose of, Lydon's wealthy mother. Dr. Mulbach isn't very interesting -- bald, mousy, full of self confidence, and an obvious phony. As the other heavy, William is more interesting as a character. He has a personal reason for wanting to destroy Lydon's family, which I won't get into. But William the actor is a sort of mannequin with a Hollywood face and a pencil-thin mustache. He "acts" the way a traffic light sends out signals. He could have made a fine career out of supporting parts in the 30s. How he snared so many leads is beyond imagining. Or maybe, as Woody Allan is supposed to have said, ninety percent of success is just showing up.The ending devolves into a confused chase involving police cars and dark sedans. The narrative thread gets lost and a minor weakness of William emerges from the shadows -- a penchant for younger girls -- that becomes the motive for a fate worse than death and -- oh, well, forget it. The acting is execrable and so is the editing.

MartinHafer "Strange Illusion" begins with a wacky young man having a very Freudian sort of repetitive dream about an evil man trying to steal his widowed mother. This seemingly Oedipal theme, however, turns out to instead be a sort of prescient warning, as his mother IS in trouble and it's up to this boy to save the day. How he KNEW what would happen was baffling--did his dead father send him these dreams, was he psychic or did he simply read the script! This film has many elements that are quite interesting and could have made a great film. However, I found the film to be frustrating because at the same time there are elements that severely detract from the story and made it hard viewing. The biggest problem was the complete lack of subtlety as well as the film telegraphing what would occur. At no point was the audience in any doubt that the neurotic young man was correct--and having there be doubt would have made the film far more suspenseful and interesting. Second, if you can accept the idea of these incredibly detailed dreams 100% accurately predicting a coming danger (even though the guy did not even know that his mother was dating anyone--let alone an evil man), then you'll much more enjoy the film. I just felt it was all a lot of mumbo-jumbo.For me, the film COULD have been great. As I said above, make the threat much less obvious and subtle--SUBTLE! And, get rid of the warning dreams completely--the film certainly didn't need this angle and the mother could have still been at risk from a creepy fiancé. Or, if all of what the kid later discovered was all a product of his disturbed and delusional mind--that could have been great. I wish I could have liked this film more. I think just by looking at it that the film was rushed into production and they just didn't give the plot problems much thought.Oh, and by the way,...the ending totally sucked. Totally.

Terrell-4 Hamlet, Freud and Edgar Ulmer may seem like an unnatural group of pals, but among them they have come up with a tidy little psychological thriller. In fact, with a bigger budget and stronger actors, Ulmer might have had a classic on his hands. As it is, Strange Illusion can't escape its Poverty Row heritage. Even so, it's a well-paced movie that keeps a person's interest. Even if the best-acted roles are the bad guys, that's not necessarily a drawback in a B movie. Paul Cartwright's father, an older man and a respected judge, died two year ago in a train accident...at least it appeared to be an accident. Paul's not so sure. Paul (James Lydon) is a young man from a good family. He has a younger sister and an attractive mother, Virginia Cartwright (Sally Eilers). The family is well off. Paul lately has been having dreams, disturbing dreams, of his father telling him to take care of his mother, to be wary of a shadowy someone who is coming into her life. Paul confides in an old friend of the family, Dr. Martin Vincent (Regis Toomey), who tries to calm Paul but who also respects Paul's intelligence. Paul is, in fact, smart and resourceful. Then one day Paul's mother introduces him to Brett Curtis (Warren William), a smooth, gracious man Paul feels he's met before. Curtis and his mother announce that they plan to wed. Paul becomes suspicious of Curtis and Curtis' association with Professor Muhlbach (Charles Arnt), a psychologist who runs an exclusive and very private sanitarium. Before long, Paul becomes a "guest" in the place so that he can investigate Muhlbach and Curtis. But things begin to go wrong. It becomes a race to see if Paul can break away, if Dr. Vincent can convince the police that there may be a link between the death of Paul's father and the team of Curtis and Muhlbach, and if Paul and some of his friends can get to the lake cottage where Curtis has gone with Paul's sister. James Lydon had a great success as a child actor, especially playing in the Henry Aldrich films. He was typecast as a gawky, friendly, well-intentioned kid. Strange Illusion was an attempt by him to break out of those roles as he grew older. He's not a gifted enough actor to carry the weight of the movie, but he certainly gives the role all he's got. He's no embarrassment. The acting interest, however, comes from Charles Arnt and, especially, Warren William. Arnt gives the professor a great gloss of smiling insincerity. He's unethical down to his polished fingernails. Warren William really shines. William was a tall, broad-shoulder man with a profile that out- Barrymored Barrymore's. He had a creamy baritone voice and a smooth manner. Although he was in private life a shy man long-married to one woman, in movies he became typed as a charming rotter. He was big stuff in the early Thirties, but by the late Thirties had slowly moved down to B movies. In Strange Illusion, at 51, his profile was still as sharp as a crease, but his face was beginning to look its age. His eyes were a little puffy and pouched, the jaw line not quite so firm. With the Curtis character, William's face looks like dissipation. As soon as we see Brett Curtis walk into Virginia Cartwright's parlor to be introduced to Paul, we know this man is as insincere as a head waiter. Later, while we watch him try to sweet-talk Virginia into to an early marriage, all the while subtly looking over the daughter, we know the ghost in Paul's dream was right on. William does a fine job showing us a creepy, dangerous charmer. Ulmer starts the movie with the dream sequence. It's B movie special effects but it serves the purpose of getting us into Paul's mind and preparing us to believe in Paul. Be forewarned. There's a brief dream sequence at the end which verges on the icky.

MARIO GAUCI This one's basically a noir retelling of Shakespeare's "Hamlet", which actually anticipates Akira Kurosawa's obviously superior THE BAD SLEEP WELL (1960) by several years! I had expected the film to be a ramshackle effort in the vein of the same director's better-known noir, DETOUR (1945), but it looks fairly stylish overall – beginning with an astonishing dream sequence.The central plot, though clearly altered to fit the conventions of modern-day small-town America, retains its essential fascination (with the sequences in the clinic achieving genuine suspense and the whole given a commendably fast pace) – thanks also to modest yet effective casting: Jimmy Lydon is the youngster suspicious of mother Sally Eilers' new boyfriend, the reptilian Warren William; also on hand is Regis Toomey as Lydon's psychology professor, who becomes his co-conspirator in unmasking William (the man responsible for the death of Lydon's father). Even if Eilers doesn't look to be that much older than her on-screen son, William decidedly comes across as a lecher – since he also has his eyes on Lydon's girlfriend and sister throughout the course of the film! Incidentally, the youthful element present here is rather surprising but this actually lends proceedings a welcome quirky charm.Since the film has fallen into the Public Domain, there are several DVD editions of variable quality out there – the best value for money seem to be those emanating from the Roan Group and All Day Entertainment. As a matter of fact, I had long considered purchasing the latter for the accompanying documentary about Ulmer's tenure at Poverty Row studio PRC; thankfully, I was able to get to the film regardless via a recent late-night screening on Italian TV which I taped.In conclusion, I liked STRANGE ILLUSION well enough for it to join THE BLACK CAT (1934), BLUEBEARD (1944), DETOUR (1945) and THE NAKED DAWN (1955) among Ulmer's more interesting and satisfying work.