The Worst Film Ever

Disappointment for a huge fan!

Better Late Then Never

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

The movie begins with an odd little framing device, wherein a crime reporter questions a morgue attendant and we learn that one Jefferson Monk has been...well, decapitated in a car crash. The entry is actually entitled "The Decapitation of Jefferson Monk", so the film really begins with the ending. The film answers the "How?". So in flashback detectives Jack Packard (Jim Bannon) and Doc Long (Barton Yarborough) talk about how they tried to help wealthy Jefferson Monk (George Macready) just days before when they met in the very restaurant in which they are sitting.Monk tells Doc and Jack that his death has been prophesied to occur in three days. However, the prediction was made a year earlier, shortly after returning from a vacation to the orient with his wife where he felt he had been followed about. Back in San Francisco, Monk's wife was kidnapped by a mysterious oriental cult and the cult leader only agreed to free them both if Jefferson agreed to sell the cult his head upon his death for 10000 dollars. It turns out that the cult worships the one thousand year old preserved body of their deceased leader, who was a dead ringer for Jefferson, and the corpse needs a fresh head as the embalmers' skill had reached their limit. However, this does not mean that the cult will kill Jefferson. Instead, they merely prophesy when he is going to die and will collect the head at that time. To bring home that they might be right, the month before the cult sent Jefferson a prophesy saying his wife would become paralyzed. Three days later she was unable to move her legs and has been wheelchair bound since.Now at first Packard and Long think they are dealing with a nervous rich guy with too active an imagination, but then they witness a freak accident in the restaurant that would have killed Monk had he been sitting at his original table, and there is a one legged man who follows Jefferson home every night with a small satchel - just the size for a man's head, or so Jefferson Monk claims. But then Packard and Long actually see the guy, so maybe there is something to all of this.Now this film is worth watching just for the atmosphere, acting - especially Macready, and the plot twists alone. As for the mystery, the film itself reveals what is going on too early in my opinion. Plus, if you listen to Jefferson Monk recount his story to Packard and Long you are going to see the common thread in the tale long before the mystery is unwound. Why this elaborate ruse? That is for Packard to reveal later in the film.Henry Levin directed all three films in the series and he gives this one some nice noirish touches and a general air of fatalistic doom. It's a good start to the series, and things only get better from there. Nobody in the 40s could make a cheap B mystery film that didn't seem like a cheap B mystery film like Columbia. Recommended.

Jim Bannon and Barton Yarborough are Jack and Doc, detectives: this particular case has them encountering a man with a peg leg, a woman mysteriously confined to a wheelchair, a Russian psychiatrist who apparently does not speak that language, and a man named Monk (George Macready) who is certain he is going to be decapitated within a matter of days. Told mainly in flashback, the story shows Jack and Doc unfolding the mystery and gradually discovering that not all of these characters are what they seem. Indeed—are any of them? Macready is excellent as the bizarrely-behaving threatened man who is either rattled or drugged or just unbalanced. Nina Foch is excellent as his wife—from her first appearance there is little doubt that there is more going on behind that face than she is letting on. Bannon is steady if unspectacular as the lead detective, essentially a no-nonsense straight man looking for logical answers. Yarborough's southern drawl as Doc is, I take it, meant to indicate his status as slightly comical sidekick; he says things like, "Hey, you mean all that stuff about the prophecy is just so much razzle dazzle?" but for the most part he stays out of the way.Overall, an inventive story and solid direction combine to produce a sinister atmosphere in which tension stays high and the viewer is kept guessing. Straightforward performances add weight to this excellently dark mystery.

There's a real film noir feeling to this Columbia programmer based on the "I Love A Mystery" radio series. The story is a good one, about a man who predicts his own death will happen in a few days (GEORGE MACREADY) and hires two detectives (JIM BANNON and BARTON YARBOROUGH) to help him avoid the hit man.The plot keeps spinning unpredictably from scene to scene, all of it played in earnest style by the participants, including NINA FOCH as Macready's scheming wife. As a matter of fact, it has the feel of a Cornel Woolrich story, but he didn't pen this one.Well photographed, given some good production values and it gives George Macready another chance to show just how he could dominate any scene he appeared in. His role here is just as enjoyable as his much more famous screen appearance in Columbia's GILDA.With a clever script and smoothly directed, it's probably the best in the trio of "I Love A Mystery" series that made it to the screen.

Despite the comments by the other reviewer, I thot this was one of THE most entertaining mysteries of the 30's - 40's! (And, I own over 700 films!). It contains MANY plot twists, and plot "twist-twists"; nothing is as it seems. The entire film gives a creepy, "something is about to happen" atmosphere and shows a VERY creative author, as Calton E. Morse was! A mystery you won't forget!Norm