Inner Sanctum Mysteries (1943/45) Campy 1940s Murder Melodrama’s (Review)

Podcasting just does not get the credit it deserves, it removed the barriers to provide a platform for the everyman to broadcast around the globe. Let’s just ignore the fact the industry has been diminished by overexposure and broadcasting giants like the BBC getting involved making it very difficult for smaller projects. Podcasts deserve note because they brought back a tradition of “old radio” that was only really survived in the most tangential of ways in the most inopportune of time slots, the radio horror show, and elevated it to heights it had not enjoyed since the halcyon days of radio plays. One of the early prominent examples was Inner Sanctum, a long-running radio show that became a series of 6 movies (Inner Sanctum Mysteries) with Lon Chaney Jr. That same series has been released by Eureka Video for a new generation to discover.

The first in the series is Calling Dr Death (1943). Lon Chaney Jr plays neurologist, Dr Steele, who is in a loveless marriage that continues only because his wife enjoys the status and money that comes with being a doctors wife. Waking up one day in his office with only vague memories of angrily driving to greet his wife, he is greeted by the news that she has been bludgeoned to death and had acid thrown on her. News that is brought by Inspector Gregg (J. Carrol Nash), a detective who would give Colombo a run for his money as a harasser of murder suspects. Some early series tropes that are established here include Lon Chaney Jr carrying the weight of the film with his best hangdog expressions and all the women falling in love with him. Calling Dr Death is a perfectly charming 40s potboiler, doing exactly what it sets out to do without crippling itself with awful twists or dire acting that would go on to plague later entries. That being said, it’s not as memorable as those latter Inner Sanctum Mysteries.

Next is Weird Woman (1944). In this one, Lon Chaney Jr plays a university lecturer who falls in love with a woman that was raised with the tribal beliefs of a pacific island, returning back to work he becomes much more successful in his career. With his newfound success not only do all the women fall in love with him, but death also follows him like a stink thanks to someone manipulating things behind the scenes. In spite of the awful title, this ranks among the better Inner Sanctum mysteries on the basis that the characters are much less conventional, eccentric sorts who have more of a persona to that than of “vague American upper class”. It also helps that much of the supporting cast is filled with notable B-movie actors of the time in Anne Gwynne, Evelyn Ankers (who together have great chemistry), and Elisabeth Risdon. A charming folk horror adjacent piece.

Following that up is Dead Man’s Eyes (1944), the last to be directed by series lead Reginald Le Borg. This time Lon Chaney Jr plays an artist who, whilst painting the piece that’ll make his name, has an accident – confusing eyewash for acid. Blinded, he backs away from his marriage into high society life which ties the model, Tanya, (Aquanetta, in what is hands down one of the worst performances I have ever seen) to him out of guilt and obligation. The model becomes his nurse out of culpability. There is a father figure who offers his eyes as part of an experimental eye transplant procedure, and guess what happens? That’s right, Dad Hayden is murdered. Most all of these films take the form of a murder mystery, with it appearing as if Lon Chaney Jr is the culprit only for time, ploys and schemes to reveal the true killer. The value of Dead Man’s Eyes come in the tragedy of the concept, an artist has the one thing he needs to ply his creativity robbed from him, his father figure killed and his potential marriage torn asunder. Weirdly, for such a hodgepodge project, it’s also the more noir-friendly of the collection.

There is one other consistent aspect to five of the six films, each starts within a library and upon the table a disembodied head in a crystal ball that tells of the true darkness in man’s hearts and how easy it is for anyone to driven to murder. “That’s right, even you”. He is an odd inclusion, a much, much less campy precursor to the likes of the Cryptkeeper in the 1980s. The disembodied head gives the series a sense of continuity, even if he is a weird presence where it is hard to distinguish what he is actually saying. ‘Subtitles On’ will probably be necessary for these brief introductions.

Onto the second disc with Frozen Ghost, in which the light fantasy hue of Weird Woman returns with Lon Chaney Jr starring as a carnival mentalist who believes he killed a drunken sceptic at a show with his eyes alone. Not scanners style, the drunkard just drops dead in the middle of the stage. Distraught, he breaks his engagement off with his partner (who can read minds while in a hypnotic trance) and ends up staying with the owner of a waxworks museum, where all the women fall for him – owner and her young impressionable niece. From which, the eccentric figurine modeller starts getting possessive. Unlike the others, thus far, Frozen Ghost isn’t based upon figuring out who killed who, this is based on upon paranoia and scheming; add to that the inherent oddness of literally all the players involved and you have one of the more satisfying entrants into the series. Additionally, the plot of its secretive antagonists sees it within earshot of a classical 1940s style of horror.

In Strange Confession, Chaney Jr is introduced entering a gothic manor demanding help from the lawyer who lives there, from which a story is told in a flashback where Chaney Jr’s chemist life falls apart only to be rebuilt and fall apart again on the greed and selfishness of a medical company chief. Formally, in both tone and execution, this fifth Inner Sanctum Mystery stands out as unique purely on the premise that this ups the melodrama that was skulking under the surface of the earlier titles. There is little in the way of characters accusing each other of treachery, no backstabbings (literal or metaphorical) and it demands more of Lon Chaney Jr than looking like a sadsack. On the contrary, much of it involves a happy family unit, new years parties and Chaney Jr doing the best for his family. It’s only in the final act of this piece that things take a turn for the ultra tragic, and after having watched all these films in quick succession – I cannot tell how refreshing this was even with it being such a minor change.

Last and most definitely least is Pillow of Death. It even has the worst title, which is no small achievement. In this, Chaney Jr is involved with Donna Kincaid (Brenda Joyce), the young heiress to the Kincaid fortune – he is a lawyer and she is his receptionist. And back to form we go because someone has murdered Lon Chaney Jr’s wife. Additionally, this takes a left turn by omitting the ‘head in a jar’ introduction. There’s a degree of horror to this one thanks to the inclusion of Julian, a spirit medium who gets all the Kincaid ghosts talking and the neighbour boy being a massive creep, stalking Donna and finding secret pathways into the massive Kincaid house. For much of the runtime, it’s perfectly likeable and charming in the same way the other films are. Sure, the acting is pretty weak, but there’s nothing egregious. That is until the film reaches its conclusion in the worst 10 minutes of the boxset with revelations that can only be described as utter hokum that contradict who the characters are in the hope of landing a ‘Shocking’ conclusion.

Even being generous none of these film could ever be described as great, never mind lost classics, especially when they have all been produced by Universal around the time of the world-famous Monster Movies. Each of the six movies are perfectly charming and likeable vehicles for the Wolfman, Lon Chaney Jr. As enjoyable and entertaining as these six films can be and as much of a historical context that the streamlined extras offer, it’s hard to see who this is for beyond Universal and Lon Chaney Jr completists and there isn’t many of those about in the wild.

Thank you for reading Rob’s Review of The Inner Sanctum Mysteries

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