The Unknown (1946) User Reviews

Familiar ingredients but still better than average programmer...

[Doylenf · 6/10 · 7 November 2007]

Although there's a little too much Southern exposition to set the stage for a present day story, THE UNKNOWN is a better than average programmer in the Columbia studio's "I Love A Mystery" series. Getting to the heart of the story takes up too much time at the start, but once the story starts dealing with the mysterious things going on in an old Southern mansion, it keeps building interest until the mystery is solved.

The cast is an interesting one, even though there are hardly any big names involved. KAREN MORLEY is the troubled woman on the brink of madness, ROBERT WILCOX is her lover who has been banished from the grounds, JIM BANNON is Jack Packard, the detective, and BARTON YARBOROUGH is again his partner. JEFF DONNELL is the lady who stands to win an inheritance and MARK ROBERTS is the young lawyer designated to read the will.

All of it is directed in nimble style by Henry Levin, an old hand at these sort of programmers and, despite the low budget, given some handsome settings.

Summing up: Gets off to a slow start but gradually builds interest.

Atmospheric old house variation with a couple of truly spooky moments

[csteidler · 6/10 · 23 November 2011]

The dominant matron of a wealthy southern family prevents her daughter Rachel (Karen Morley) from running off with the man (Robert Wilcox) she has secretly married. There's an argument; there's a struggle for a revolver; the girl's father is accidentally killed; the groom flees and the girl is stuck—to spend the next many years alone in the decaying mansion with her mother, her two bitter brothers, and a butler whose devotion to the mother runs dark and deep. So begins The Unknown—in a lengthy introductory scene narrated years later in ghostly tones by the finally deceased mother.

Jumping to the present day, we see Jim Bannon and Barton Yarborough arriving on the scene with another young woman—Jeff Donnell as Nita, the now grown daughter of the cruelly separated couple of the opening scene. Bannon and Yarborough are, of course, Jack Packard and Doc Long, back for a third and final appearance as the detectives from I Love a Mystery.

The mystery this time around involves strange baby cries from behind the walls, the unbalanced Rachel (played by a sufficiently disturbed Morley), a family crypt and house full of busy secret passages, and our detectives' efforts to present Nita as a legitimate heir to the place—efforts that are quickly expanded to include keeping her safe and sane.

The suspense develops nicely; the atmosphere crawls with sinister shadows and inscrutable, furtive glances and creepy noises; suspicion is cast cleverly over an assortment of possible villains.

Short and sweet, The Unknown is hardly nightmare-inducing, but it's certainly a fast-moving and entertaining little picture. –Call me a sucker, but I'll admit to goose bumps running up my spine in at least one scene.

Last of the I Love a Mystery Films is more Southern Gothic drama than mystery

[dbborroughs · 6/10 · 21 October 2008]

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.

It was Columbia, not Republic

[frontrowkid2002 · 23 December 2007]

Re: the review of the Unknown by the reviewer from Kentucky. Republic Studios did not produce the I Love A Mystery series. It was Columbia Pictures. I have the original lobby card from the first film, "I Love A Mystery" (adapted from the radio play "The Decapitation of Johnathen Monk) and probably the only film in the series that was faithful to the radio series. The other two films simply used the characters of Jack Packard and Doc Long. My friend, Carole Mathews appeared in the first film, and signed the lobby card for me. She also provided me with a DVD of the film. Columbia also produced the Whistler film series, which for some reasons lasted longer. There were only 3 films made in the I Love A Mystery series and why they were discontinued is anybody's guess. Probably box office appeal.

"It's creepier in here than it was outside."

[utgard14 · 6/10 · 3 February 2014]

The third and final entry in the I Love a Mystery series with Jack Packard (Jim Bannon) and Doc Long (Barton Yarborough). The story this time centers on a mystery at a spooky Southern mansion. Melodramatic acting from some but nobody stinks up the joint. Karen Morley stands out. Bannon is his typically bland but inoffensive self. Perhaps it's the Southern setting but Yarborough is even more Huckleberry Hound than usual ("Hey son, look a-yonder!"). Good time-killer. Better than the second film in the series, but not as good as the first. Overall, this series provided three B mystery films that were pretty good. Not without flaws, particularly with the lackluster detectives themselves. But the stories were interesting and enjoyable with lots of moody atmosphere.

A truly really good old dark house mystery!

[mark.waltz · 6/10 · 8 November 2010]

From the opening narration of dead matriarch Phoebe Martin giving the back story of her deranged family, "The Unknown" is several notches above the usual programmer. Part of the "I Love a Mystery" series done briefly at Columbia in the mid 40's, this one is the best, although the first one is pretty neat, too. However, for the most part, this one is unrelated to the first two. They had a bit of a comic overtone, while this one has a gothic feel to it, something like "Rebecca". If not as well known or as polished as that film, it is equally spooky.

The opening segment dramatizes the accidental death of the family patriarch which ultimately leads to the family's desolation into being reduced to being totally reclusive from once the cream of society. When a young girl named Nina (Jeff Donnell) arrives after the death of Grandmother Martin, she quickly discovers her mentally disturbed mother (Karen Morley) who was driven to insanity by being forced to give up her husband, Nina's father.

Soon, it's apparent that someone is trying to get Nina out of the way and her attorneys must help her find out who the culprit is before it's too late. This is where a lot of ingenious surprises come in, and there are lots of them.

Home in Kentucky

[sol1218 · 6/10 · 14 October 2010]

(Spoilers) In this the third and last of the "I Love a Mystery" movies no one ends up losing their head like in the two previous one's, "The Decapitation of Jefferson Monk" and "The Devil's Mask", but we do have Rachel Martin, Karen Morley, lose her mind in it.

Rachel was secretly married to Richard Aronld, Robert Wilcox, which had her outraged father Capt. Selby Martin, Boyd Davis, throw a fit when he found out about it! With Selby pulling out his revolver he and Richard struggled until it went off and blew the captain away. That if anything annulled the marriage between Richard & Rachal with him being accused by the dead captain's wife Phoebe, Helen Freeman, of murdering him! Now 20 years later there's a will to be read to the surviving Martin clan in what Phoebe, who passed away the week before, wants to be done with the Martin Mansion, and everything thats goes along with it, in the Kentucky Blue Grass country.

It's when private eyes Jack Packard and Doc Long, Jim Bannon & Barton Yarborough, are hired by this mysterious Adam Franklin to see that the mentally challenged Rachel Martin's 20 year old daughter that she had with the on the lamb Richard Arnold Nina, Jeff Donnell, gets her share of the Martin fortune. That has Phoebe's two reclusive sons Eddie & Ralphie,James Bell & Wilton Graff, go on the warpath in them wanting the mansion and everything in it including Joshua the butler, played by J. Louis Johnson, all for themselves!

Things get really complicated later on when Phoebe's last will & testament that to be read the next morning is somehow lost from the Martin family lawyer's Reed Cawthorne, Mark Roberts, briefcase! The biggest surprise of all is the unexpected arrival of Richard Arnold, whom Phoebe Martin hated like poison, showing up for the reading at the late Phoebe's written request!

***SPOILERS*** Someone out there in Blue Grass country doesn't want Phoebe's lost will to be found or read in that whoever he or she is wants to keep things the way there were all these years. And with both Nina and her estranged father Richard, who was lost at sea for the last 20 years, about to get part of the Martin estate that person was willing to go so far as murder! In he or she keeping them from getting anything that Phoebe was to leave to them in her will!

It's no big surprise who this mystery man really is and by the time he's exposed by Jack Packard & Doc Long you just about lost interest, together with the cast of characters that's in it, in the movie. That's unless your willing to suffer through the films final torturous confusing and not making any kind of sense at all ten minutes!

A Showcase for Karen Morley

[aimless-46 · 7/10 · 7 November 2007]

"The Unknown" (1946) is a surprisingly entertaining and atmospheric mystery inspired by the "I LOVE A MYSTERY" radio program. It is actually one of three Republic B-movies based on the program, all featured straight arrow detective Jack Packard and his corn-pone partner Doc Long (Barton Yarborough).

In "The Unknown" Jack and Doc are hired to escort young Nina Arnold (Jeff Donnell) to her ancestral mansion in Kentucky for the reading of her grandmother's will. The twist is that Nina was placed in foster care as an infant and will be meeting her mother Rachel (Karen Morley) for the first time. The mansion is spooky with her grandfather's body buried behind the fireplace and a mausoleum full of seemingly restless ancestors located outside the house.

I was very surprised at how well written and nicely paced this film was. It's a good yarn with a lot of misdirection and some unexpected plot elements.

Although Bannon and Yarborough are the series regulars, top billing for "The Unknown" went to Morley. Deservedly so as it is clearly her film, she plays an addled woman who never recovered from the loss of her baby daughter. She keeps a baby crib in her bedroom and hears a baby crying throughout the film. The was probably Morley's best performance, shortly after she fell victim to the HUAC hearings and worked very little in the industry from that point.

The other two "I LOVE A MYSTERY" thrillers are also quite entertaining but neither has anything to match Morley's performance.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

Martin Family Values

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 17 August 2020]

The third and last film based on the I Love A Mystery series has San Francisco PIs Jim Bannon and Barton Yarborough accompanying Jeff Donnell for the reading of andma's will at the Martin Family estate. The Martins are an old southern family in the Tennessee Williams/William Faulkner tradition and they are on creepy bunch.

Donnell has been raised away from them in a boarding school all her life and she's now meeting her family including her unbalanced mother Karen Morley for the first time. There's grandma s will to be read, but a whole lot of strange things going on including one real murder.

Good thing Donnell has teo {Is with her as Bannon and Yarborough get to the bottom of things,

Nice if cheaply made mystery with some horror overtones.

Too much history; not enuff MYSTERY!

[Norm-30 · 6/10 · 3 April 2000]

Back in 1946, A trio of films was made from the "I Love a Mystery" radio programs; this was one of them. (The other 2 were the "Devils' Mask" and the "Decapitation of Jefferson Monk"). This film is about the 2nd best of the series (with "Monk" being the best).

Someone had told me that this film was based on the "ILAM" pgm, "The Thing That Cries in the Night", but it ISN"T! (The only thing it has in common is the sound of a baby crying).

FAR too much time is given to the "history" and "family skeletons" of a Southern family (in fact, the film reminded me of "Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte"!). Jack & Doc were added almost as an afterthought!

And, unbelieveable as it seems, some of those Civil War people were STILL alive in 1946; this is stretching the imagination a bit TOO far!

Carleton E. Morse had (potentially) great material to work with; this is one of his (very few) failures.

Norm

Strange film.

[wkozak221 · 3/10 · 23 March 2020]

I love the ILAM radio series. The movies are fairly good. However, this one relies to much on the supernatural and voiceover at the beginning of the film. I like detective movies. This one falls short. Also, I disagree with Mr. Morse to not put Reggie back in the cast. It leaves a hole that is annoying.

The unknown

[coltras35 · 8/10 · 16 November 2023]

The plot concerns the efforts of amnesiac Nina Arnold (Miss Jeff Donnell) to claim her rightful share of her domineering grandmother's legacy. Someone is trying to murder Nina, and that someone may very well be her emotionally unstable mother Rachel Martin (Karen Morley). But with Jack and Doc on the case, Nina has nothing to worry about-or does she?

Hidden passageways, a hooded grave robber, eerie shadows, and mysterious killings". The Unknown" is seeped in gothic atmosphere and tweaks the dark old house scenario with a freshness and flair. It's a compelling melodrama-mystery with interesting plotting matched by fine performances led by Karen Morley, who is not "all there" after an incident that occurs early on in the film.

My poor poor baby.

[hitchcockthelegend · 6/10 · 23 September 2018]

The Unknown is directed by Henry Levin and adapted to screenplay by Charles O'Neal and Dwight Babcock from the radio play written by Malcolm Boylan and Julian Harmon. It stars Karen Morley, Jim Bannon and Jeff Donnell. Music is by Alexander Steinert and cinematography by Henry Freulich.

A wonderfully good old fashioned spooky house mystery finds a group of relatives arrive at a big mansion estate for the reading of a will. Pretty soon strange occurrences and accidents are the order of the night.

Clocking in at just seventy minutes in run time, Levin's picture doesn't have time to bore or bother with pointless filler. Standard creepy house rules apply here, shadows dominate the visuals (Freulich's photography excellent), which accentuate uneasy atmosphere as characters trawl through secret passageways, barely lit corridors, the ominous staircase and even a mausoleum that sits next to the house.

The sound mix is important because you have to have creaks and groans, and the unnerving cry of a child in the night, all is spot on there. While the characters are a ripe blend of eccentrics, suspicious suspects,intrepid investigators and a dainty dame. The mystery element holds strong throughout, and while the resolution is hardly a bolt from the blue, it pays off well enough to round out a good time spent with the viewing. 6.5/10

The Unknown-Better to Keep it that Way 1/2*

[edwagreen · 1/10 · 6 February 2014]

Dreadful eerie 1946 film where a dying woman, who blames herself for the way her 3 children have turned out, tries to right a wrong with more drastically terrible things occurring.

Driving her daughter to the very brink of insanity and beyond, the latter got that way when she was supposed to marry a man while already married and the latter two are confronted by her father, and of course, the gun goes off. The nasty mother chases the new husband away and presto, it's years later.

With the old woman now supposedly dead, a young girl and others are brought back to the mansion. Seems that the girl is the daughter of the now crazy daughter, the latter constantly hearing a baby cry. All sorts of mayhem occurs and the old lady turns out to be alive while explaining why she set events in motion.

Terrible film.

Karen Morley/The Unknown

[matthewwave-1 · 15 October 2010]

Very odd to see someone state that Jeff Donnell is the biggest-name draw here, given that the star is Karen Morley. Granted, Morley wasn't the biggest movie star ever, but, I'd think that Dinner at Eight and Scarface alone would provide her a bigger profile than Donnell. And she also managed to appear in a few other special, noteworthy flicks, such as The Mask of Fu Manchu, Gabriel over the White House and Vidor's great, if flawed, Our Daily Bread. Even The Sin of Madelon Claudet and Mata Hari.

Plus, Morley's pretty boss in this film. She really anchors it and makes her character quite a sympathetic one. It really is her film.

As for the rest -- it's a fun, minor little B-mystery with nice horror touches. As are the other I Love a Mystery flicks. Nothing great, but certainly fun for mystery, horror and B-movie fans, the kind of small, old, and old-fashioned movie that deservedly endears itself to certain kinds fans (I'm one of them).

Plus, this one had really nice Southern Gothic atmosphere. I love it when a cheap film can effectively create and define a relatively small space and generate a real (especially spooky) atmosphere. (Can you tell that I'm a big-ass Val Lewton fan? Or that Horror Hotel/City of the Dead is one of my very favorite horror movies?)

I just saw all three of the ILaM flicks on TCM the other early AM and enjoyed the other two similarly. Fairly ambitious in ideas and plot twists, far less so in their makers' ability to turn those thoughts into fully-realized cinema – and fun, old-fashioned treats, all in all. Bannon is hardly a great actor, but he sure as heck is nice to look at, and Yarborough has his moments. And each film has a few special bonuses in its "case-specific" cast: I Love a Mystery has the great Nina (My Name is Julia Ross) Foch and legendary screen creep George Macready; The Devil's Mask has Anita ("Ginger's Mom") Louise and Frank Mayo, an actor who intrigued me greatly just a while back on TCM with his terrific starring performance in Vidor's keen silent melodrama, Wild Oranges (talk about creating and defining a small, atmospheric space!), making me wish he'd been given so much more to do in his career; The Unknown has not only has Morley and Donnell but also, for the Val Lewton fan, The Leopard Man's James Bell!

Matthew

The final case for Jack and Doc.

[BA_Harrison · 6/10 · 3 May 2023]

I wouldn't say I love the I Love A Mystery movies, but I do like them. This third and final film in the series is another enjoyable tale - an old dark house thriller with a Southern Gothic feel.

The film opens with the camera prowling through the rooms and corridors of a run-down mansion while the voice of Phoebe Martin (Helen Freeman) tells how she drove her daughter Rachel crazy and alienated her two sons. In flashback mode, we then see what exactly caused Rachel to lose her marbles.

Back in the present, Detectives Jack (Jim Bannon) and Doc Long (Barton Yarborough) accompany Nina Arnold (Jeff Donnell) to the mansion so that she can reunited with her mother Rachel, but her arrival coincides with lots of mysterious occurrences and a murder or two, which Jack and Doc investigate.

The sleuthing is a lot of fun, with the pair discovering the requisite hidden rooms and secret passageways, and uncovering skeletons in the Martin family closet, although one deduction in particular takes a bit of swallowing (Jack guessing that the fireplace is hollow and might conceal a body). The suspense is ably handled by director Henry Levin and his cast do well, with Donnell putting in a particularly fine performance.

The film might not be a classic of the genre, but it's a reasonable way to pass the time, and I would have been happy if the series had continued a little longer than it did.

5.5/10, rounded up to 6 for IMDb.

Fair End to the Series

[Michael_Elliott · 21 November 2010]

Unknown, The (1946)

** (out of 4)

The third and final film in Columbia's short-lived "I Love a Mystery" series. This time out Jack (Jim Bannon) and Doc (Barton Yarborough) travel to the South with a woman who claims to be the granddaughter of a woman who recently died. The will is about to be read and those who were expecting more money aren't too thrilled with the new family member and soon they're trying to uncover a secret from the past. Having now seen all three entries in this series I can easily say this is a major step up from the second film (THE DEVIL'S MASK) but not quite as good as the first (I LOVE A MYSTERY). I think this films biggest flaw is that there's simply way too much story and too many mysteries trying to be solved. The film starts off with a good ten-minute prologue that sets up various things that are going to happen throughout the film. I thought the opening was handled very well but the rest of the film didn't really build on it. Once in the present day it takes way too long for all the characters to be introduced and in the end the mystery just has too much fluff and not enough interesting things. Both Bannon and Yarborough slide into their roles quite nicely, although I'm sure there are going to be some that won't enjoy their brand of "comedy" so to speak. The real star is is Karen Morley who even manages to get the top billing. I thought she delivered a fine performance and really made her character quite interesting. The film's Southern settings are actually pretty good and we're really given a dark and Gothic look in this old mansion. There are many horror trappings mixed in with the comedy and drama but in the end THE UNKNOWN simply doesn't have strong enough of a screenplay to make everything work.

A Cast Of Unknowns Sinks "The Unknown"

[GManfred · 12 October 2010]

Pretty good Gothic mystery, although it's been done before. Lots of bodies and screaming women and neurotic family members with axes to grind - and, of course, you have to guess which one is the murderer. The picture moves along at breakneck speed, so fast that many important pieces of the plot are skimmed over and without leaving time to create much mood or tension.

I thought the main problem with this film was that the actors weren't very good. The picture is filled with actors who never made it big in Hollywood, mainly because they lacked talent and charisma, and they were a drag on a fairly good storyline. This was not a 'cheapie', as production values were good, but the only recognizable star worth a mention is Jeff Donnell.

Nevertheless, it is worth your time (only 70 minutes worth here) but you can't help thinking it could have been better. This was on TCM the other morning, an invaluable source of older and hard-to-find movies.

Nothing special here.

[youroldpaljim · 30 June 2001]

As mentioned by "Norm", this film is an entry in Columbia studios "I Love a Mystery" series based on the popular radio program. This deals with the spooky going ons at the reading of a will. The film is set in an old southern mansion. As is often with these types of films, there is an aristocratic family with a "skeleton in the closet." This kind of plot was common in films since the early thirties but would soon go out of style.

THE UNKNOWN is only a moderately entertaining mystery with a few atmospheric moments. It is one of those movies that one watches with mild interest but little enthusiasm.