User Reviews

A woman and her fiancé travel to get her father's blessing on their up coming marriage. In tow is another couple. The father, a professor and inventor is working on am invention which will make unlimited power from sunlight. Arriving at the house as a thunderstorm threatens to break the quartet find themselves in the middle of a murder.

This is yet another old dark house movie with secret passages, dark cloaked figures, weird science and lots of mysterious people lurking around. Both better and worse than many similar films from the period this movie is worth a shot for those who like this sort of thing.

Graced with a game cast including Jack Mulhall and Misha Auer this is a good looking film with some nice smart ass dialog. It looks and feels like your typical old dark house movie of the period with very little of the periods creakiness. The film keeps things moving and lively in a way that many films from the period don't (they also use enough sound that you don't notice the lack of music).

The film however is far from perfect. The main problem is really split into two parts. First there are way way too many characters wandering around the grounds. Its simply too many for the story to sustain. I think there are 11 characters at the house, many of which are little more than faces that stand in the shadow or pass by the windows. Until the final denouncement we have no idea who these people are. Related to that this film simply has too much going on. Characters are spread out all over the place and its hard to tell who is doing what or why. And again, until the final denouncement we're never really sure what is going on, its a bunch of people staggering around an old dark house.

Recommended for those who like old dark house films and are a bit forgiving in their tastes. Others may like it but find it too slow and confused for their tastes.

FYI: IMDb lists this as being 62 minutes long however the version from Alpha Video that I saw ran about 10 minutes shorter. I'm not sure if that part of the reason things are confused or not. I somehow think not.

The second recorded deployment of Kenneth Strickfaden's fabulous fantasy lab equipment (following the original Frankenstein), is the sole element apt to please viewers of this wearisome essay at creating an Old Dark House mystery, wherein stabs taken toward comedy and suspense are less than persuasive, and production values in this low-budget affair are anaemic. Danny (Jack Mulhall) and Doris (Josephine Dunn), in order to avoid a stall in their marriage plans, entrain with married chums Freddie (Eddie Boland) and Gertrude (Marjorie Beebe) to the mountain hermitage of Dr. Farrington, inventor father of Doris, to gain his consent for their wedding, and on a dark and stormy night (as can be noted from repeated footage of identical flashes of lightning), with the film striving for a general atmosphere of malevolence, the quartet arrives at Farrington's aerie. Meanwhile, the doctor is seen demonstrating his latest brainchild, a "VXO Accumulator", to a visiting colleague, Judge Folger, a contrivance that will purportedly mine the sun's rays for the development of free power that will benefit mankind, but as the device might also be utilized for evil, the stage is set for harrowing proceedings. These include Folger's murder, along with the kidnapping of Farrington, all while the bewildered young couples try to stay out of harm's way from such as secret passages and trap doors, disappearing corpses, a sinister caretaker played by Mischa Auer (complete with maniacal cackling laughter), in addition to two other men who skulk about the grounds (one of whom is dropped, unidentified as to name or purpose, by the script); notwithstanding these melodramatic events, the film is bare of moments that may be interesting to a sensate viewer. In truth, from its very beginning, this is a poor film, and even with the surfeit of ominous occurrences tossed at us, the work is so substandard that a viewer eventually is resigned to merely studying the sequences to wonder at examples of what are not only distinctly tedious goings-on but risible as well, the script, direction, acting, and editing being as atrocious as can be imagined.

Murder at Dawn (1932)

** (out of 4)

Danny (Jack Mulhall) and Doris (Josephine Dunn) are on their way to tell her father about their engagement but what they don't know is that her father scientist has created a deadly ray that can work off the sun. The father's friend is mysteriously murdered and soon more bodies are piling up as someone tries to steal the secret.

MURDER AT DAWN was one of the numerous "old dark house" movies that were produced in the 1930s. This one here features lightening, thunder, mysterious shadows, screams in the night, a nutty scientist, murder and of course an annoying lead couple who go for laughs. If you've seen at least two of these then you already know what's going on in these types of movies as there are countless suspects and out of no where one pops up at the end as the killer. Rarely do these films make any sense so it takes something really special happening in order for them to stand out in the pack.

Sadly, nothing too special happens here as there are way too many characters introduced to us and none of them really stand out in an entertaining way. All the stereotypes are in full force here and I must admit that it was rather hard following the film because it's so uneven. The performances range from fair to decent but, again, nothing really stands out. MURDER AT DAWN isn't horrible and it's mildly entertaining but it's mainly going to appeal to those who want to see all of these sub-genre movies that were made.

Danny and Doris along with some friends go to Dr. Farrington's house to ask get his consent to marry. Well, once they arrive weird stuff happens...such as finding Farrington and his friend dead...and soon after this discovery the bodies disappear!! What follows is essentially a murder mystery and an old dark house film rolled up into one.

As far as the genre goes, this one is fairly good--despite coming from a low-budget studio. However, one thing bothered me and may well bother other viewers--the very ignorant black character. Back in the day, folks thought it was funny featuring a scared black man as comic relief....and this one is no different...except that he's even more ignorant than usual. A sad cliche, I know...but still a decent film despite this.

My idea of torture, which might perhaps be inflicted upon terrorist suspects in order to make them scream and divulge their confederates, would be to tie them down, prop open their eyelids with those tools used by optic surgeons, and force them to watch this film. Richard Thorpe directed it, and later he learned how to direct, as proved by 'A Toy Wife' six years later, but at this early stage in what was to be a long career (offering him plenty of time to go to confession and tell some holy father that he had committed the sin of directing 'Murder at Dawn' abominably), he seemed to imagine that film direction was something one does with a knife in a butcher shop, serving up the offal to the masses, of which this is a misshapen specimen. To pretend that this is a film is like pretending that an ant is an elephant. Of course, everything is relative. After all, to a flea, an ant is an elephant. And similarly, to Richard Thorpe in 1932, this presumably did appear to be a film. But we who live in later times are not fooled: this is unmistakably a piece of rubbish.

The brilliant recluse Dr. Farrington (Frank Ball) has just completed his invention. The VXO Accumulator, a device that can harness the sun's rays and offer free energy to everyone. He discloses this information to his friend Judge Folger (Phillip Smalley) and plans to give it to the world tomorrow.

Wait! What's this? The lights go out. When the lights come on Judge Folger is dead and soon Dr. Farrington disappears.

The search for Dr. Farrington goes on by his daughter (Josephine Dunn) and soon-to-be son-in-law (Jack Mulhall.) Meanwhile, we have mysterious viewers, long-fingered creeps, hidden panels, and it appears that someone will be murdered at dawn.

This is a 1932 black-and-white whodunit. The only version I saw was the Alpha video DVD. It needs a little cleaning up.

Now, "Murder at Dawn" perhaps may not suit the tastes of a highbrow who demands a perfect production and direction and an answer to everything - but it's a very stunning, atmospheric and VERY much underrated B movie, with all the elements of a classic 'isolated mansion' mystery: complete with a thunderstorm, shady types creeping through the garden at night and peeping into windows, a mysterious housekeeper (Martha Mattox, well known to fans of the genre from "The Cat and the Canary" and "Murder by the Clock"), turning fireplaces, bodies in the closet, and so on...

It's also got its 'scientific' element (which constitutes the reason for all the murderous ongoings): an inventor is working in the seclusion of this old house on a device for producing electricity, which could of course be very important for the future of mankind, but also very dangerous...

But the entertainment isn't neglected either in this charmingly old-fashioned 'cheapie': there's romance in the shape of the inventor's daughter (Josephine Dunn) and her fiancé, played by Jack Mulhall - and also a comical side, which is handled very nicely by the 'old' married couple Marjorie Beebe and Eddie Boland. And a very special surprise: Mischa Auer in a VERY unusual role as the strange and sinister caretaker - you'll have to look twice to recognize him!

For friends of the good old 30s' mysteries, an absolute 'must' - it catches the mood and atmosphere just as well as the much more famous classics of the same time, like "The Old Dark House" or "The Bat Whispers"!

There is only one reason to watch this film: Eddie Boland as Freddie. And possibly for Gertrude (Marjorie Beebe), Freddie's wise cracking wife.

I caught this on YouTube (Hastings Mystery Theater) and watched out of curiosity as the host Randall Scheafer discussed Big Four Productions. The major studios had bought up most theaters in insure their pictures would be seen. But the independent theater owners still needed films. Small production produced films on the cheap: spend a lot less on sets and extras and anything else you could cut. That's how a picture like Murder at Dawn gets made. And if you watch, you can "clearly" see the result.

There is an amusing exchange between the four stars and George Reed ( a fine African-American actor) that relies on stereotypes, but you can't deny Reed's comedic timing.

The plot is as silly as the opening screen credits: a "mad" scientist creates a power source that could provide free electricity to the "wage slaves," but faces a foe bent on stealing his invention. The twist is the heroine, her fiancé, and friends are going to see the scientist because he is the heroine's father and she wants his blessing. Forget the plot, everything will eventually work out. But the banter between Freddie and Gertrude is blistering. And Freddie solo screens as he tipples his way along provide some terrific laughs, or at least chuckles.