All Talking All Night

 (imdb)

THE UNHOLY NIGHT-1929-Many murders are taking place during the worst fog ever in London. Lord Montague (Roland Young; later the star of the “Topper” series) survives an attack and is help to Scotland Yard where he meets Sir James (Claude Fleming) who's investigating. It seems there were 4 murders earlier and Montague knew and served with them all. The surviving members all agree to meet at the Lord's house. In another part of the house, James disrupts a seance being conducted by Dr. Ballou (Ernest Torrence) and his fiancé Lady Violet (Natalie Moorland), Montague's sister. 

The remaining regiment includes Lionel Belmore, John Loder and John Miljan as the doomed Mallory who was disfigured in the war. After he's killed, everyone comes under suspicion. Then a woman Efra (Dorothy Sebastian) shows up. Almost immediately Hindu lawyer Abdul (uncredited Boris Karloff) shows up and reads a will from Efra's father, a traitor. The will seems to give a motive for killing and also for breaking up the regiment. They slowly unravel. 

Somehow over night the entire regiment save Montague is killed. James decides to have a kind of seance lead by the sinister looking mystic Sojin (Sojin Kamiyama; who turns out to be a good guy).

It's a crazy, confused and kind of convoluted ending with Karloff giving a weird performance with a strange accent. This was one of the handful of films actor Lionel Barrymore directed in his long career. He and Karloff had acted together earlier in THE BELLS (1926). It also suffers slighty from too much stilted talk. A problem that plagued many early sound films. 

Top billed Ernest Terrence later played Prof. Moriarty in SHERLOCK HOLMES (1932) (with Clive Brook in the titular role) but died the next year from complications from surgery. Karloff had made his “talkie” debut earlier in the year (in BEHIND THAT CURTAIN). Japanese actor Sojin Kamiyama was one of only 3 Asian actors to portray Charlie Chan (in THE CHINESE PARROT (1927)). The story for THE UNHOLY NIGHT was provided by playwright Ben Hecht.

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Lured

LURED-1947-Interesting overlooked murder mystery directed by Douglas Sirk (later known for his glossy Hollywood tearjerkers).

Lucille Ball stars as an American dancer in London who's recruited by a Scotland Yard inspector (Charles Coburn) to be a decoy to help capture a killer who meets his victims via personal ads. Costar George Sanders is his usual suave self and a chief suspect. George Zucco is great as the crossword puzzle solving detective who helps out. Boris Karloff has a one scene in a stand out role as a crazy dress designer/red herring! Other suspects include Alan Mowbray, Cedric Hardwick and Joseph Calleia. Alan Napier is Coburn's assistant.

It's a remake of a French film "Pieges" (PERSONAL COLUMN; LURED's original working title) made in 1939 by Roberet Siodmak with Erich Von Stroheim in the Karloff role. Earlier Von Stroheim was Karloff's immediate successor for the role of Jonathan Brewster in ARSENIC AND OLD LACE on Broadway.

For some reason LURED was not easy to find for a long time but TCM has showed it several times in recent years and Kino finally released it on DVD.

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