There was a uniformity to Reginald LeBorg's vision of the Inner Sanctum series; the results should have been judged as generally outstanding, especially since the details of Universal's brand acquisition left him and his team without any established traits or footholds to work with, but it was not a series that encouraged artistic or even commercial growth. Apparently Universal perceived and used the series in much the same way as rival studio Columbia used their Boston Blackie, Lone Wolf, Crime Doctor and Whistler series: as a kind of on-the-job film school wherein the best directors of their short subjects were given a chance to hone their skills on not-very-demanding co-feature product. After three such films, LeBorg was "kicked upstairs," as it were, and set to work on A-pictures like SAN DIEGO I LOVE YOU and DESTINY, while still knocking out the occasional B like THE MUMMY'S GHOST. Having reached a glass ceiling at the studio, he left in 1945 - a year that produced one last Universal picture, HONEYMOON AHEAD - and found his way into active duty as a free-lancer working for Monogram, United Artists, Eagle-Lion, and other companies. LeBorg would pass away in 1989 at the age of 86, by which time he had added a few more titles of especial interest to his filmography, including THE BLACK SLEEP, VOODOO ISLAND with Boris Karloff, and DIARY OF A MADMAN with Vincent Price.
The Inner Sanctums continued with THE FROZEN GHOST, directed by Harold Young - another Universal contracted B-director who, like LeBorg, had started out in Europe with serious credentials (he had directed THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL for Alexander Korda in the 1930s), but had petered out in America specializing in musicals (like SWING IT SOLDIER and JUKE BOX JENNY) and the odd atmospheric horror picture (THE MUMMY's TOMB). Just before entering the Inner Sanctum, Young had been farmed out to Disney to direct live action sequences for THE THREE CABALLEROS. THE FROZEN GHOST was a film of mixed parentage and absolutely feels like it: it was originated as a screen story by Henry Sucher (who had originated Universal's Paula the Ape Woman series with CAPTIVE WILD WOMAN and also written THE MUMMY'S TOMB and THE MUMMY'S GHOST) but ended up being rewritten at least twice more by the dual-billed Bernard Schubert (MARK OF THE VAMPIRE) and Luci Ward (who seems to have written only DICK TRACY VS. CUEBALL outside her main diet of B-Westerns).
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| Lon Chaney's male gaze gets him into trouble in THE FROZEN GHOST. |
In this story, nightclub hypnotist Gregor the Great (Chaney) and his assistant Maura Daniel (a pregnant Evelyn Ankers artfully concealing her baby bump in her last Universal picture) find their stage act disrupted by a drunken audience member, whose heart stops under Gregor's angry gaze. Believing that he somehow murdered the man though sheer force of will, Gregor abandons his successful career and decides to mellow out by taking a nice, relaxing job at... a wax museum famous for its replications of famous murders! Not at all practical, but it sets the ball rolling by introducing the lovesick owner (Tala Birell) of the museum who wants Gregor for her own, her equally lovesick niece Nina (Elena Verdugo, who also made eyes at Chaney as the gypsy girl in HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN), the wax artisan (Martin Kosleck) who talks to his creations and eventually displays a dead body in historical character, and Gregor's concerned manager (GUNSMOKE's Milburn Stone). The scenario is all over the place, but Chaney is well-centered as the conscience-plagued protagonist (whose whispered interior monologues à la LeBorg continue here), and the hypnotism scenes and museum displays evoke a nicely spooky atmosphere, building to a fun fist-fight and knife-throwing battle between Chaney and Kosleck. It's probably the least accomplished of the six films in this series, but it's never boring.
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| J. Carrol Naish, Lon Chaney and Brenda Joyce toast their triangle in STRANGE CONFESSION. |
The next film in the series, STRANGE CONFESSION (released in 1945, just one year after Julien Duvivier's STRANGE CONFESSION - also for Universal!), is a de-politicized remake of an earlier Universal picture, 1934's THE MAN WHO RECLAIMED HIS HEAD, an outstanding drama (directed by Edward Ludwig and scripted by Jean Bart) in the same spirit as Abel Gance's J'ACCUSE (1919, remade 1938). Whereas the original had starred Claude Rains as a pre-WWI newspaper editor driven mad when he discovers that his anti-war editorials are being censored by his publisher, who is actively using his paper to ramp up for war in support of the munitions manufacturers with whom he's secretly in league, this adaptation casts Chaney as Jeff Carter, a talented but unambitious chemist working for hire under mercenary pharmaceutical magnate Roger Graham (J. Carrol Naish), who has designs on Carter's young wife Mary (Brenda Joyce). I wouldn't exactly describe Chaney and Joyce's chemistry as "chemistry," but they engage in actual kissing and successfully evoke a happy marriage, if one under a good deal of economic stress. Informed by Jeff that his influenza-fighting drug-in-progress needs a special mold found only in the jungles of South America, Graham sends him and his peppy associate Dave Curtis (standout support by newcomer Lloyd Bridges) on a long trip below the equator, putting the time toward his own planned seduction of the neglected Mary. The situation sets the third act stage for disaster and an unusually grisly climax for this time period. Evidently this adaption of Jean Bart's original story was not authorized, a fact that knocked this film out of public circulation for decades; it was never shown on television as part of Universal's Shock Theater package, as the other five films were. Many people now regard this as the best film of the entire series, and I can't argue with the fact that director John Hoffman (making his feature debut after the successful short film MOODS OF THE SEA (1942, co-directed by Slavko Vorkapich) tells a very smooth, believable, and effectively modulated story. It would have fit beautifully into Columbia's Whistler series, which was more of an anthology of stories about the dark side of humanity. However, it doesn't quite muster the sense of the uncanny and the shuddery that we derive from the other Inner Sanctum films.
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| Chaney warns spiritualist J. Edward Bromberg in PILLOW OF DEATH. |
The final entry, PILLOW OF DEATH, intimates that Universal is closing up shop with this series from the very beginning; alone of the half dozen films, it doesn't open with the expected footage of David Hoffman's floating head in the crystal ball. The film itself is also fairly far afield from the series' usual fare, starring Chaney in a new script by George Bricker (SH! THE OCTOPUS, THE DEVIL BAT), based on an original story by Dwight V. Babcock - the same team responsible for Universal's HOUSE OF DRACULA and HOUSE OF HORRORS during this period. Handsomely photographed on a beautifully appointed manor set, this is basically a throwback to the old dark house thrillers of the late 1920s and early 1930 - pictures like THE CAT AND THE CANARY, THE THIRTEENTH CHAIR and SECRET OF THE BLUE ROOM - involving an unwelcome wedding announcement (Chaney and Brenda Joyce, again), seances, secret passages, and a series of murders committed overnight with handy pillows. It's held together well by director Wallace Fox (whose long list of B-Westerns is interrupted by two Bela Lugosi Monogrammers, BOWERY AT MIDNIGHT and THE CORPSE VANISHES) and a nicely eccentric cast of characters played by the likes of a pox-casting Clara Blandick (Auntie Em from THE WIZARD OF OZ), hatchet-faced Rosalind Ivan, amusingly elderly eccentric George Cleveland, and J. Edward Bromberg (SON OF DRACULA) as the suspicious medium and spiritualist, Julian Julian. Even on first viewing, it's a familiar picture, comfortable as an old slipper, rather than a bad one.
The first five pictures in this set look better than ever before, sparkling with heretofore unsuspected clarity and sheen that does a lot to boost the appeal of the films' sets, 1940s wardrobe, and atmosphere. For some reason, PILLOW OF DEATH isn't comparably presented; it looks dimmer and flatter than the others, even in contrast to its own previous DVD release. It's not distracting or unwatchable, but one hopes that Universal might be pressured into offering a replacement disc to make up for what appears to be clearly a mistake in selection. The supplements include two half-hour documentaries by Daniel Griffith, the first covering the original Old Time Radio Series, and the second covering the film series (though not quite in its entirety); these are informative and entertaining enough but there is a feeling of haste about them, a sense of being strapped for time and sufficient sources and resources to cook up something truly substantial and enthusiastic. There are also audio commentaries for CALLING DR. DEATH (novelist and film historian C. Courtney Joyner and the director's daughter, Regina LeBorg), WEIRD WOMAN (film historian Justin Humphreys and Dark Delicacies proprietor Del Howison), and STRANGE CONFESSION (Joyner in conversation with HELLRAISER screenwriter Peter Atkins, speaking tinnily through a phone receiver) - and an eleven-minute videotaped interview with actor Martin Kosleck briefly covering his motion picture career. Also included are links to a number of various streaming Inner Sanctum-related properties, ranging from the films INNER SANCTUM (1948) and LADY OF BURLESQUE (1943) to three surviving recordings of the original program, including "The Tell Tale Heart" with Boris Karloff, "The Black Sea Gull" with Peter Lorre, and "Melody of Death" with Mary Astor.
(c) 2020 by Tim Lucas. All rights reserved.
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