Ann Sheridan was the only actress to portray Nurse Keate more than once -her other showing was in "The Patient in Room 18" -a weaker entry, which starred Patric Knowles as Detective O'Leary.
#MYSTERY HOUSE 1938 PLUS#
In a nutshell, these stories are all murder mysteries, all use a medical pretext as a plot springboard, and all feature a hospital nurse, Miss Keate, plus a detective named Lance O'Leary (Dick Purcell, in this outing). "Mystery House" was based on one of Eberhart's 'Nurse Keate' stories. I was pleased to see that more than a few folks here on IMDb knew who Mignon G. All in all, the movie's main value may be in it's representative nature of what people went to see on a slow Saturday evening so many years ago. Speaking of Mason, catch a sleek, young William Hopper years before his personable detective role on the Mason series.
#MYSTERY HOUSE 1938 SERIES#
Of course, a whodunit like Mystery House would migrate later on to TV, especially to a series like Perry Mason (1957- 1966), where the suspects would assemble in a courtroom. The studios (here it's Warner Bros.) turned out hundreds of these competent little programmers year after year, a tribute to their professionalism.
#MYSTERY HOUSE 1938 MOVIE#
What the movie does have going for it is a clever solution to the locked room. Only crotchety old Aunt Lucy (Dudgeon) projects real personality. And even the formidable Ann Sheridan is denied her usual pizazz. As detective Lance O'Leary (that name should have been reconsidered), actor Purcell has nearly zero charisma, which unfortunately eliminates someone for the audience to identify with. Of course, the culprit is exposed amid a climactic assembly of suspects, perhaps the biggest cliché of all. There's the puzzle of murder in a locked room, an old dark house, and suspects aplenty. It's a decent if unremarkable little mystery with many clichés from that whodunit saturated decade. *I checked and apparently testing the body for gunshot residue to determine if a person actually DID kill themselves was not done until the 1970s, so this is not a hole in the story. One is the guy who thinks he knows whodunnit-and vows to say something in the morning.only to then be killed! Another is whenever anything important is said, someone unseen just happens to be listening outside the window! It also features the scene with everyone in the room and the killer betrays himself! And, when the dick is attacked near the end.everyone just stands around except for one dopey lady who, naturally, slugs the dick on the head! All in all, as brainless and mind-numbing as a typical mystery with not to distinguish it. This short murder mystery is just about exactly the same as about 95% of the B-murder mysteries. So it's up to a private dick, Lance O'Leary (Dick Purcell) to determine what really happened. It's quickly ruled a suicide-which makes you wonder what these board members told the police*.
Not surprisingly, before he can tell who it is, he's found dead in his room with a gun in his hand. When the film begins, the head of a corporation tells the other board members who are there at his hunting lodge that he knows one of them forged company documents. Back in 1938 when it ran as the second feature of a double bill, I don't think too many people left their seats. Ann Sheridan and Dick Purcell are our leads and television fans will spot a future detective in William Hopper who played Paul Drake on the Perry Mason series. No hints at all as to who and how, but I will say the weapon is in plain sight. He's found shot to death in a locked room, but the man's daughter can't believe it wasn't murder so she hires a private detective and invites the whole lot of them back to the retreat where the crime occurred.
Or can it? The members of the board of directors of a company are gathered on a retreat where the president confronts them with his suspicion that one of them is guilty of embezzlement.
It's another one of those classic shootings in a locked room, where the verdict can be nothing else, but suicide. All things considered Mystery House is not a bad product coming out of Warner Brothers B picture unit.
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