Norm, if you want to make a fool of yourself don't sign your name. Too much history in a movie?? Obviously you need whatever education you can get. There were quite a few Civil War veterans alive in 1946. I really hate it when people set themselves up as "authorities".
shareI couldn't agree more. This film is such a treasure. I could not tear myself away from the screen. It was well scripted and very suspenseful. I think it is the best movie of this type I have ever seen. I can't understand its low rating. I would buy this movie in a second and will recommend it to my friends.
shareThis, to me, is one of the worst movies I've seen in ages. Poor acting, poor plot, poor everything. Half the movie consisted of people pounding on doors and screaming. It was a real time waster. Nothing spooky or eerie at all. I couldn't even sleep through it due to all that ridiculous pounding on doors every five minutes, and then when I was awake I had to listen to the poor dialog and watch the horrible acting.
I gave it a 2, and I was being generous.
Pull the string! Pull the string!!
Out of the three "I Love a Mystery" films, this was the one I liked the least. It just didn't hold my attention.
shareI'm with you; anybody who would think this melodramatic mess was a good mystery story needs to see something decent. One of the reviewers of this on first page got it mixed up with the second "I Love a Mystery", "The Devil's Mask". They must've been drunk when they wrote what they did, either that or they're living in an alternate universe!
Nothing is more beautiful than nothing.
I love this movie! Of the three in the series, I think that this one is by far the best film.
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JimHutton (1934-79) & ElleryQueen
You know I just read his review and I am looking at the movie. I like history so there is never too much history for me. But he did bring up something that I never thought of, that Civil War vets were still alive. Probably not that many but I am sure a lot of people who remembered slavery and the Civil war were alive. My great grand father was still alive and he remembered both vividly. But the movie was entertaining and that is all it was suppose to do. I liked it a lot. So much that it really didn't matter if the Civil war was only 80 years ago.
And I liked the idea that the black servant was very pro active and was not just there in a subservient role or a comic relief which back in the 40's people like Rochester played. Especially in scary movies or mysteries. I feel the director and writer should be commended for that on top of it being a pretty good movie.
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I'll join those who liked the film. It was just a B film, and I don't expect as much from those as I do from an A film. But I did not find the film hard to follow (though I didn't think the plot was the least bit plausible), it held my attention throughout, and provided an hour or so of entertainment. I enjoyed the cast, especially Jeff Donnell. Jim Bannon and Robert Wilcox were handsome to look at, even if Bannon was as stiff as John Gavin. God, what a store window mannequin Bannon (and Gavin) was.
shareRochester was hardly a subserviant character. Yes, he called his boss, "Boss," but he was integral to the plots. He was not a comic relief character, like Step-n-Fetchit in Charlie Chan in Egypt (a movie I love, by the way) and in Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation.
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....not to mention the math doesn't quite work out either. If we assume that the present day action is happening in 1946, then, when the Dad was killed, it was in fact about 20 years prior. He would still have needed to have been close to 70 then, but it didn't stretch credibility too far for me.
As for the rest, well, yes, there was a bit too much running around, pounding on doors and screaming, but I thought it was a great little mystery, that you didn't want to dissect too thoroughly.