Bulldog Drummond decides to investigate some strange occurrences at Temple Tower, a (supposedly) abandoned castle in the middle of nowhere. Along the way he meets a young woman who has obtained a secretarial position at the Tower. She meets the current resident, crusty old Henry B. Walthall, who wastes no time showing her his collection of fabulous gems, and wants her to take them into London and sell to jewelers. Walthall was once the head of a gang of jewel thieves, all of whom eventually went to jail while he made off with the loot. Having recently been paroled, his hunchbacked former partner tracks him down to the Tower, determined to get his share of the gems.
A very Scooby Doo plot makes this 58 minute programmer easy to digest. The film first came to my attention when I found it listed in Don Willis' vol 1. Walt Lee consigned it to the "exclusions" section. So is it horror or not? Well... all the genre tropes are there: creepy old mansion, secret tunnels, a dungeon with in-crushing walls, trap doors dropping into quicksand, strange flashing lights, sci-fi security system, and a masked villain, who dresses like Irma Vep from Feuillade's LES VAMPIRES. Unfortunately, director Donald Gallaher simply doesn't know how to use them for full horror effect. Most of the film is in long or medium shots, and there are relatively few closeups, something which can be fatal in an old dark house mystery. Gallaher had all the ingredients, but simply didn't know how to show them to their best advantage. What we get is a murder mystery with a few spooky (but tame) scenes. Which is a pity, because the movie starts off so promisingly: the camera rapidly dollys up inside a chimney to reveal the black masked face of the villain looking down from the top, a shot that wouldn't be out-of-place in a Paul Leni production..
The cast is OK. Kenneth MacKenna is a good Drummond. Henry B. Walthall plays Tullly Marshall. Cyril Chadwick is the silly-ass comedy relief (and there's waaaaaaaay too much of that). The biggest problem is Marceline Day. Known to CHFBers as the female lead in LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT, Day was a casualty of talkies. There's nothing wrong with her voice, per se. But she didn't possess the ability to do any real vocal acting. She just says her lines in her Colorado Springs accent, then goes on to the next. She made 20 more talkies after TEMPLE TOWER, almost all of them very low budget Poverty Row westerns.
So... is TEMPLE TOWER a horror movie? Well, it could be. We've certainly seen a whole lot of ODH films with fewer tropes. But, until someone else chimes in with their opinion, I'd feel more comfortable putting it the "Borderline" category.
A very Scooby Doo plot makes this 58 minute programmer easy to digest. The film first came to my attention when I found it listed in Don Willis' vol 1. Walt Lee consigned it to the "exclusions" section. So is it horror or not? Well... all the genre tropes are there: creepy old mansion, secret tunnels, a dungeon with in-crushing walls, trap doors dropping into quicksand, strange flashing lights, sci-fi security system, and a masked villain, who dresses like Irma Vep from Feuillade's LES VAMPIRES. Unfortunately, director Donald Gallaher simply doesn't know how to use them for full horror effect. Most of the film is in long or medium shots, and there are relatively few closeups, something which can be fatal in an old dark house mystery. Gallaher had all the ingredients, but simply didn't know how to show them to their best advantage. What we get is a murder mystery with a few spooky (but tame) scenes. Which is a pity, because the movie starts off so promisingly: the camera rapidly dollys up inside a chimney to reveal the black masked face of the villain looking down from the top, a shot that wouldn't be out-of-place in a Paul Leni production..
The cast is OK. Kenneth MacKenna is a good Drummond. Henry B. Walthall plays Tullly Marshall. Cyril Chadwick is the silly-ass comedy relief (and there's waaaaaaaay too much of that). The biggest problem is Marceline Day. Known to CHFBers as the female lead in LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT, Day was a casualty of talkies. There's nothing wrong with her voice, per se. But she didn't possess the ability to do any real vocal acting. She just says her lines in her Colorado Springs accent, then goes on to the next. She made 20 more talkies after TEMPLE TOWER, almost all of them very low budget Poverty Row westerns.
So... is TEMPLE TOWER a horror movie? Well, it could be. We've certainly seen a whole lot of ODH films with fewer tropes. But, until someone else chimes in with their opinion, I'd feel more comfortable putting it the "Borderline" category.
statistics: Posted by PhantomXCI — 3:39 AM - 1 day ago — Replies 1 — Views 240