IMDb meta-data is runtime of 1 hour and 28 minutes, rated 6.9 by 2455 cinematizens.
Genre: ODH (Old Dark House)
Verdict: Curate’s egg.
An heiress is reunited with her long lost father, accompanied by her friend, Joan ‘Firecracker’ Blondell, who steals the show, as usual. Roland Young is her hapless victim. Don McBride plays the hopeless Plod, again for the hundredth time.
Death is only the beginning for Joan, returning as a ghost. Firecracker saves the day when she clobbers the villain. She recruits Roland to help. Eddie (Rochester) Anderson plays the black stereotype, pining for Mr Benny; nonetheless, he has the best line in the film – ‘every hair on my (fur) coat is standing up.’
Daddy’s house is replete with suspicious stereotypes starting with that master of menace, that doctor of dread George Zucco, a grim house keeper, an icy butler, and more. They all skulk around looking for the plot with no success. Later there are trap doors, sliding panels, and hidden passages.
The villain goes around in an invisible man get-up with a cape. This is a look that will catch on Newtown. It has quite a twist at the end which remains my little secret.
Much, too much, is played for slapstick. The heiress is the luminous Carol Landis. Her duties include posing, fainting, and screaming. She had 49 credits. The best in my book is It Happened in Flatbush (1942). At 29 she committed suicide with an overdose of drugs after five failed marriages, the first at 15, recurrent but unspecified health problems, depression, and a stalled career. Tant pis.
What Topper has to do with it is anyone’s guess. Anyone?
It was released on 21 March 1941. At the time Australian troops participated in the Siege of Giarabub in Libya.