1933 Directed by Kurt Neumann
According to a legend, the mansion's "blue room" is cursed -- everyone who has ever spent the night in that room has met with an untimely end. The three suitors of the heroine wager that each can survive a night in the forbidding blue room.
O Segredo da Alcova, 青い部屋, Тайна Голубой комнаты, Blå rummets hemlighet, The Secret of the Blue Room, 蓝室秘密
USANR USA
The central mystery is not nearly as eerie or perplexing as the opening scene in which a woman celebrates her 21st birthday with her father and three male friends, all of whom she kisses on the mouth one by one
“Everybody is here, I see. Let’s begin.”
Secret of the Blue Room resembles the Universal horror films but is primarily a murder mystery with its horror aspects limited to Gloria Stuart’s screams, which she does really well. On the night of the twenty-first birthday of Irene von Helldorf (our Gloria), she and her pa, Robert (Lionel Atwill), are joined by three of her suitors, Captain Walter Brink (Paul Lukas), Frank Faber (Onslow Stevens), and Tommy Brandt (William Janney). Robert casually mentions that the Blue Room in his castle has been locked after three people have died mysteriously after spending the night there. Tommy, who thinks he may be the least likely to land Irene, says he will risk the danger,…
Not much secret about the sauce that produced this quickly and cheaply made Universal spooky-mansion mystery. Not only does it reprise the general set-up of James Whale's 1932 The Old Dark House, not only does it feature the same leading lady (Gloria Stuart), much of it was filmed on the same sets as that far superior film.
SPOILER ALERT FROM HERE ON
So even in 1933 this wasn't exactly original; from today's perspective - you know, our sophisticated, post-Scooby Doo perspective - much of the plot is utterly predictable. I mean, just off the bat, when a person is supposedly murdered but there's no body, and that body stays missing, you can be sure that's coming back somehow. Still, director…
“It must be terrible to be a man and have to be brave.”
No one tells a spooky story like Lionel Atwill. Gloria Stuart returns to the old dark house with her father (Atwill) and three male suitors (Paul Lukas, William Janney, Onslow Stevens). Lovely Irene (Stuart) is wealthy, pretty and turning 21, which means she must be betrothed! And what lengths these men will go to for her hand (no spoilers)!
Part of the B-movie series on TCM, programmed by Jeremy Arnold, the hosts note that it uses the same sets as that film, and exteriors from the German version of Blue Room. The plot is the classic “stay in this haunted room overnight to prove you're a man”…
64/100
Predictable but decent mystery with a nice atmosphere and good cast. It's charming and pretty fun.
Universal Horror is literally only A Thing in the public consciousness thanks to a handful of iconic performances by a handful of iconic performers plus a handful of movies that do actually stand the test of time, but mostly thanks to many sustained decades of successful branding. This is definitely among the lesser-known Universal Horrors (not a single monster to speak of!) but it's still fairly emblematic of most of their '30s output. Which is to say: fine but forgettable and nothing terribly special on most levels. One level upon which these movies really do stand out, though, is as creepy ancestral homestead porn. If you wanna watch people milling around for an hour and change inside a mansion or castle filled…
"Three persons met death there under strange and peculiar circumstances . . . I'd rather not speak of it. It's long ago now - and better left forgotten."
Perhaps the film should’ve heeded said advice.
In short, this old dark house - correction - castle flick is . . . well, short: short of length (a brisk sixty-minutes), short of budget (holding the distinction of being Universal’s cheapest of the year), short of shooting schedule (six days), short of substance, short of logic, and, regrettably, short of satisfaction.
Gloria Stuart has a trio of eager suitors who agree to spend successive nights in the titular cursed salon (to prove their manly-manliness or some such nonsense - what’s that cliche about…
A fairly compelling murder mystery. Mostly because of the back-story of the Blue Room where people died at the strike of 1.am many years ago. And now three suiters wants to impress the young lady of the house wanna test the legend and to see if they were brave enough to sleep one night each there.
And it got fairly interesting for a standard old house mystery. Nothing revolutionary or anything, but the actors did well enough, especially the man of the house Lionel Atwill who is always brilliant in these kinds of stories. So this was a solid rush job taking only 6 days to shoot and resulted in some good cheap entertainment overall.
In my The Invisible Man review, I mused that there was something about the 60-70 minute runtime that seems to force creatives to be ruthless in their pacing/storytelling, no doubt thinking about rock-solid B-fare like My Name is Julia Ross and similar compact films, and wondering if there would ever be another movie in that time bracket that could put that musing to the test. Secret of the Blue Room accomplishes this "exception that proves the rule" quite nicely, a decent (if a little threadbare) locked room mystery that would likely be a really solid 45 minute episode of network television but strains a bit in it's 66 minute runtime to keep things pacy.
Alas, there is nothing terribly saucy…
Anyone else grossed out by Gloria Stuart kissing four men on the lips for prolonged periods of time after having dinner with them, starting with her father? Or was that just me?
The mystery was alright.
Cheap, formulaic pre-code mystery thriller from Universal that attempts to get in on the spooky house horror format, but unlike the far superior The Old Dark House, there's a real lack of atmosphere and craftmanship here, despite the film apparently re-using some of the same sets from Whale's production and the initially quite chilling set-up with lots of potential eventually reveals itself to be a potboiler police procedural once Edward Arnold's Commissioner shows up and dispels any hints of the supernatural.
It's an entertaining hour or so nonetheless, with an impressive cast far better than something this low grade deserves, including Lionel Atwill doing what he does best and Gloria Stuart and Paul Lukas bringing their distinctive charms to the…
