Last of the I Love a Mystery series is an odd duck film. In someways its the least of the series, yet in other ways the film has some great elements ripped from the pages of the radio show and so is closer to the series than the preceding Devil's Mask. The plot has Jack and Doc going to the Southern mansion with a young girl who is returning home to meet the family she never knew. Murder and mayhem follow as they arrive in time for the reading of a will and the family is not happy about interlopers. Its high Southern Gothic time as all sorts of misdeeds come to light. Odd film seems to be striving for something other then the typical mystery during the first third, which is all flashback during which we get the detailed set up for what is follows. Its good but it makes you wonder what any of it will do with the later mystery (The sequence is hurt by all of the actors playing much younger versions of their age appropriate characters in the last two thirds). Jack and Doc wade in and do mix things up a bit but mostly this is their clients story and she commands more screen time. Its an okay film but it feels more like a film that might have been inspired by What Ever Happened to Baby Jane with the Gothic nature pumped up to almost sleazy levels (certainly the portrayal of a well off Southern family in decline is almost offensive bordering on inbred).Give the film points for not following a clichéd path to its conclusion, or if it is, hiding in it in some nice dressing. As I said its an okay film, but it clear the series was rudderless and that with stories like this the studio didn't really care, so of course, neither did the audience. Worth a look for fans of the radio program, Southern Gothic or those who want a mystery that is far from your typical.
Review of The Unknown
The Unknown
(1946)
Last of the I Love a Mystery Films is more Southern Gothic drama than mystery
21 October 2008
Warning: Spoilers