Torture Ship (1939)

Starring Lyle Talbot, Irving Pichel, Jacqueline Wells, Sheila Bromley, Anthony Averill
Directed by Victor Halperin
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

A scientist trying to correct criminal tendencies in human beings lures a group of hardened criminals aboard a yacht as test subjects, before telling them they may not survive his experiments.

An interesting low budget suspenser from Halperin (director of White Zombie), with an enjoyable cast, the picture definitely entertained me, and I thought Halperin balanced the action, performances, and thrills admirably.  There's lots of familiar faces among the actors, with Pichel playing the unscrupulous doctor, Talbot his straight-arrow nephew captaining the ship, Wells (from The Black Cat) playing a convicted woman who may be an innocent victim or may not, Wheeler Oakman as the chief criminal, and the always creepy Skelton Knaggs as another felon.  The script, which IMDB credits to Harvey Huntley & George Wallace Sayre, based on a Jack London story, is at times overly simplistic, but also delivers its share of surprises and balances roles for the large cast very well.

When Were You Born? (1938)

Starring Margaret Lindsay, Anna May Wong, Lola Lane, Anthony Averill, Charles Wilson
Directed by William McGann
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

After an astrologer accurately predicts a wealthy art importer's death, the police bring her in for questioning, and discover her reasoning based on the date someone was born is uncannily accurate.

Although it's hard to imagine any astrologer would ever be as accurate as Wong's character is in this film, the screenplay offers an enjoyable mystery with more than enough suspects, Wong offers a very likable performance, and the filmmakers largely dispense with any Chinese stereotypes.  Nevertheless, Leonard Mudie, who is not Oriental in the least, plays another Chinese character, making Wong's scenes with him seem a little awkward.  What I found most intriguing however was the presence of Manly Hall, who provided the film's plot, and introduces us to the symbols of the horoscope and their meanings at the start of the picture.  Previously I had only known Hall for his presence in the trailer for the 1940 film Black Friday, in which he hypnotizes Bela Lugosi in an apparent publicity stunt.  According to Wikipedia, Hall was a reputed author with expertise in philosophy and the occult, and this movie marks his only foray into Hollywood moviemaking.

Mystery House (1938)

Starring Dick Purcell, Ann Sheridan, Anne Nagel, William Hopper, Anthony Averill
Directed by Noel Smith
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

A company executive dies at a gathering of the company's partners at his hunting lodge, and while they try to hush it up as a suicide, his daughter hires a detective to find out the truth.

One of a series of mystery films to feature the characters of detective Lance O'Leary and his love interest nurse Sarah Keate, with Sheridan appearing as Keate before becoming more of a household name.  It's a good mystery with plenty of suspects to guess from, and some canny misdirection in the script to keep the audience from guessing the culprit too soon.  I had some fun spotting all the familiar faces in the cast, from Purcell who would later play the screen's first Captain America, to Hopper whose dark hair is quite a contrast from his silver-haired role on TV's Perry Mason, Anne Nagel of several Universal horror films, Ben Welden, (wearing a toupee!), often a gangster on the Adventures Of Superman TV series, and Elspeth Dudgeon, the character actress reputed for her role in James Whale's The Old Dark House.