Starring Ricardo Cortez, Karen Morley, Anita Louise, Pauline Frederick, H.B. Warner
Directed by J. Walter Ruben
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)
After a gold-digging woman reveals to her paramours at a dinner party that she is blackmailing them, she ends up murdered, and a criminal at the site takes it upon himself to solve the crime.
An entertaining old dark house mystery from RKO during the era of David O. Selznick and Merian C. Cooper, the picture is well-written and directed, and opened after a publicity campaign run by NBC radio for listeners to create their own endings to the story. As far I know none of those endings was used for the film, but nevertheless it's really a compelling story, and Morley is excellent as the ill-fated but cool and confident Jenny Wren, ready to retire to the continent by blackmailing the men who had illicit affairs with her. After her death, when Cortez and his men, who were aiming to steal some incriminating letters from Wren, are marooned at the site of the party by an avalanche, Cortez takes charge in a unique twist, aiming to find the real killer so he won't be blamed. Of course there are secret passages inside the house, stormy weather, and the appearance of a would-be ghost, along with plenty of character turns from the likes of H.B. Warner, Richard "Skeets" Gallagher, and Gavin Gordon. The photography by Henry Gerrard finely captures the ghostly face the characters encounter, and some process shots of individuals falling to their deaths are very sharp and convincing. I don't know if the revelation of the murderer is as clever as the setup, but it's a fine mystery, and certainly worth your time.
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