INNER SANCTUM MYSTERIES
Head cases
RELEASED OUT NOW! 1943-1945 | PG | Blu-ray
Directors Reginald Le Borg,
Harold Young, John Hoffman, Wallace Fox
Cast Lon Chaney Jr, J Carroll Naish, Evelyn Ankers, Acquanetta
Lon Chaney Jr always made for an improbable horror icon. Lacking the uncanny shudder of Boris Karloff, the thickly accented otherness of Bela Lugosi or the shapeshifting talents of his own father, this lugubrious hulk was always a more conventional screen presence, for all that he carved out such ghoulish credits as the Mummy and the Wolf Man.
Impressively presented in HD, these six Universal supporting features capitalise on that bear-like, hangdog quality, allowing Chaney to play variants of a tormented everyman in tales of murder, conspiracy and assorted dark shenanigans. The franchise took its title from a series of pulpy mystery novels, though none of these movies adapt the books (the similarly inspired radio show was so protective that it forbade the filmmakers from using its trademarked creakingdoor sound effect – you can only be in awe of such pettiness). Gifted with magnificently lurid titles (Dead Man’s Eyes! Strange Confession! Pillow Of Death!) and introduced by a disembodied head, in truth these films only flirt with the fantastical. Weird Woman is the closest dalliance with the genuinely occult, a story of suburban witchcraft that throbs with a very 1940s fascination with – and fear of – “the primitive”, in this case a perplexing mash of Polynesian culture and voodoo. The Frozen Ghost is spectre-free but does, at least, offer a macabre wax museum and a shadowscience plot involving suspended animation. Pillow Of Death, meanwhile, dabbles with haunted house tropes.
Prioritising marital jealousies and whodunnit storylines over the truly unearthly, it’s pretty pedestrian fare in total. But director Reginald Le Borg punches up, bringing a degree of style and inventiveness to the first three films in the set. One brief but astonishing visual in Calling Dr Death even anticipates the collapsing streets of Inception.
Extras Critic Kim Newman discusses the films, offering a spirited defence of Chaney (27 minutes), while documentary “This Is The Inner Sanctum” is an efficient retrospective (31 minutes). Another documentary explores the history of the radio show (17 minutes). Three of the movies come with audio commentaries by film historians – Calling Dr Death also enlists the daughter of helmer Reginald Le Borg.
An archival interview with Martin Kosleck (11 minutes) finds the charismatic co-star of The Frozen Ghost in no mood to honour the memory of Chaney (“The most dreadful rude old drunk I had ever seen in my life…”).
Also included are six marvellously evocative episodes of the original radio show: “The Amazing Death Of Mrs Putnam”, “The Black Seagull” (with Peter Lorre), “The Skull That Walked”, “Skeleton Bay”, “The Man Who Couldn’t Die” and “Death Of A Doll”. Plus: trailers; a collector’s booklet.
Weird Woman adapts Fritz Lieber’s novel Conjure Wife, also the inspiration for the 1962 film Night Of The Eagle.