Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Whipped together in just eleven days, director Ford Beebe created one of Universal's great fright films: "Night Monster.". Made in 1941, he was lucky in casting the film colony's top performers in every role. Just as good, he had Universal's great production team to help him along. The result is a great movie to watch at night, or a rainy or foggy or wintry afternoon. The setting is the remote Ingston Towers, inhabited by the crippled and reclusive Ralph Morgan, his emotionally distraught daughter, Fay Helm, an over-protective house keeper, Doris Lloyd, a sleazy chauffeur, Leif Erickson, and a too-talkative maid, Janet Shaw. Several esteemed doctors are invited to spend a weekend at the towers along with a noted psychiatric, Irene Hervey, who was secretly invited by the troubled daughter. Don Porter is a frequent visitor along with Nils Asther as Adolph Zing, a medium. We're treated to a great musical score, lifted from The Wolfman, beautiful, shadowy photography, especially in the library scenes where a fireplace throws flickering shadows over the faces of the inhabitants. When famed director Alfred Hitchcock visited the set one day--he was interested in casting Janet Shaw in a movie--he was astonished at what director Beebe was doing in camera shots, the moody lightning and photography. What always fascinates me about Night Monster is the dynamic work done by the great Doris Lloyd as the sinister Sara Judd and cult actress Fay Helm, who steals the acting honors with her harrowing portrayal of a desperate woman trapped in a house she hates. Irene Hervey as the psychiatrist is wonderfully warm and strong. Although Bela Lugosi is top-billed, it is cringe-worthy to see him doomed to play the butler's role--which means he bulges his eyes, smiles strangely and is like wallpaper in terms of acting. The doctors are all doomed for extinction by their failure to cure the invalid of limb paralysis. A fabulous touch of menace is when the frogs stop croaking in the swampy grounds, whenever the night monster appears to murder. You can see the terror in the eyes of the victims. This sudden silence of the frogs and the billowing fog enhances a movie that reminds me much of the 1932 masterpiece, The Black Cat. This is a black and white treat with one of the most amazing casts in Universal history.

Interesting "B" old dark house thriller about somebody or something killing people right and left at the estate of wealthy cripple Kurt Ingston (Ralph Morgan). Who the culprit is won't be a huge shock to you but how they are doing it is pretty cool. The main selling point of this film is the terrific cast, even though some of the bigger names have small roles. Despite being top billed, Bela Lugosi plays a minor part as a butler. Lionel Atwill also has a minor role as a doctor. Leif Erickson plays a lusty chauffeur and Nils Asther a Hindu mystic. Janet Shaw has a memorable part early on as a sassy maid who can't get away from the Ingston estate fast enough. But the best parts go to Ralph Morgan and Fay Helm as the deranged brother and sister. This is a great movie to pass an hour. Universal made it and it's usually billed as a horror film. It does have some supernatural overtones but at its heart it's basically a murder mystery. A good one, though.

Night Monster was originally released as the B movie support to The Mummy's Tomb, which is something of an injustice: it's easily the best of the two movies.The story concerns a series of murders at Ingston Towers, home of the mutilated Kurt Ingston (Ralph Morgan). Sinister blood stains keep appearing on the stairs and other locations without any apparent cause; and the household itself contains Ingston's nervous wreck of a sister (Fay Helm), a sinister - aren't they always? - Swarmi (Nils Asther), a skulking Butler (a top-billed Bela Lugosi), a lecherous Chauffeur (Leif Erickson), a domineering companion (Doris Lloyd) and three medical men summoned by Ingston to tend his wounded body, among them Lionel Atwill.The spooky location of Pollard Slew is used to good effect in several eerie outdoor sequences in which an unseen killer stalks his prey; and director Ford Beebe keeps things moving briskly, and even brings off a sequence involving the transmigration of matter as a demonstration of the Swarmi's powers. But as the killings mount up a psychiatrist (Irene Hervey) and an author friend of Ingston's (Don Porter) begin to unravel the mystery.Night Monster is straight out of the old dark house school of horrors; but yep, there is a supernatural explanation for all the goings on. And when it comes you will gasp at the sheer cheek of it! Let's just say it's a slight borrowing from Dr. X. Lugosi, unfortunately has very little to do and Atwill is one of the first to be murdered (off screen). Yet the film is entertaining and manages a few decent chills and surprises. It's not as famous as some of the other Universal Horror pictures but Night Monster is well worth hunting out.

Thinking this was a horror movie (billed as such) and starring guys like Bela Lugosi and Lionel Atwill, I wound up disappointed.....even more so because this movie started off pretty well and had promise. However, that "promise" was never delivered. There wasn't enough suspense or action to keep my interesting after the first hour. It got way too talky for what it should have been.Fans of the two guys mentioned above will be very disappointed. Lugosi plays the butler and does very little and Atwill literally disappears halfway through. Yet, both men got pretty good billing on the opening credits. It's misleading.The story isn't bad but, outside of some good sound effects like the frogs and the crickets, is not the creepy movie it's advertised as being. Maybe in 1942 this creeped out audiences, but it wouldn't today. Then again, I only saw this movie when it was on TV and commercials were continually interrupting things. That's a big reason I don't even watch TV shows any more unless they are on DVD. Perhaps if this film ever comes out on disc, I'd give it another shot.