I've been watching some thrillers from the the first two decades of the talkies. I thought I would start a thread on here giving some comments to these at the rate of one film per post. I have found most of these B-Thrillers enjoyable. But I will warn of any disappointments I have found among them.
shareSHOCK (1946). Running time 70 minutes.
Janet wakes up from a bad dream caused by her anxiety. She has been through mental adjustments through thinking that her husband was dead for two years. And now she is waiting in a hotel room for his return after he had in actual fact been a POW for those two years. He is late arriving which help causes the bad dream. She wakes and witnesses a murder in a room opposite her balcony.
Janet suffers from a mental collapse and is taken into care by a doctor who is a nerve specialist. The doctor is the person that she witnessed murdering his wife. This poses a problem for the doctor who admits Janet into his sanitarium. Dr Cross is played by Vincent Price who portrays the torment of what to do with his troubled patient.
THE GHOST WALKS (1934). Running time 63 minutes.
Disappearances abound in this old country house thriller. A playwright sets up a theatrical agent and his secretary to stay at a remote mansion on a stormy night. His motives soon become plain after a few dramatic scenes. But his plans start to go wrong as soon as the disappearances begin.
The house once belonged to a murderous doctor who had killed his patients. In a fit of conscience he committed suicide. So the house had gained a ghostly reputation. One night an escaped sanitarium patient heads for the house to continue the doctor's murderous deeds. And it happens to be the same night as all the rest of the characters are gathered there.
THE GHOST CAMERA (1933). Running time 64 minutes.
There is an eerie opening scene before the credits roll. A car makes a perilous journey by night. The driver turns out to be a geeky chemist who finds a camera in the back of his car. He is about to proof a negative from the camera that seems to indicate a picture of a murder taking place. The camera and snapshot disappear which sets the chemist on a trail to identify the photographer who took the shot.
The chemist joins up with a young lady on the trail of her brother. Most likely he took the picture of a murder. There is a search along a railway line reminiscent of Agatha Christie's '4-50 From Paddington.' This British thriller has a very busy plot which I enjoyed.
THE LADY CONFESSES (1945). Running time 64 minutes.
Vicki answers the door to an unfriendly visitor. The woman paying the call on her is the wife of the man Vicki would be free to marry soon. Seven years after the wife had disappeared from Larry's life. She would then be presumed dead. The wife seems intent on stopping the wedding but for what reason? To spite Larry or to warn Vicki not to marry him? Shortly after the wife is murdered.
Vicki has to do some sleuthing about the murder in order to free her mind to marry Larry. 14 minutes from the end we get the reveal of the murderer and then we have to agonize over the safety of Vicki in a very tense finale.