The House of Mystery is another one of those creaky old-dark-house large-primate-running-amok ensemble cast horror-comedies that were everywhere in the early decades of film, and by the mid-1930s, with so many horror masterpieces from the last two decades showing the way forward, it looks pretty corny and old-hat. However, the movie is mildly entertaining and only 62 minutes long, so I'm giving it a small recommendation.
The film begins with a title card reading "Asia, 1913," which gave me unpleasant forebodings of racist content. I love '30s movies so much, but a lot of them have some truly awful racist scenes that mar some otherwise pretty good films. Fortunately, this scene isn't too bad, other than using "Asia" when the film specifically means India and having a few white characters play Indian people. The overall message, however, is surprisingly anti-colonialist, critiquing American and British raiding of other countries' treasures.
John Prendergast (Clay Clement) is an American archaeologist financed by a few wealthy British guys and several fellow Americans. He's looking for valuable loot in India and not being too respectable about it, even though he's also carrying on a relationship with a local woman, Chanda (Joyzelle Joyner aka Laya Joy). He gets drunk every night at a bar for American and British ex-pats until they kick him out, and he has no ethical problem stealing sacred local treasure. He's finally caught in the act, and a temple priest puts a curse on him, but he and Chanda escape with the stolen riches.
An aside: Why are so many characters in early 20th century film named Prendergast or Pendergast? I'm not complaining, but there are roughly 6,500 Prendergasts and Pendergasts in movies made between 1910 and 1960. This thought will be expanded in my upcoming book The Prendergast Effect.
Prendergast's two British backers are murdered in London, and though people suspect he's hiding out back home in the States, no one really knows where he is. Twenty years later, a domineering busybody and her absent-minded professor husband, Hyacinth Potter (Mary Foy) and Prof. Horatio Potter (Harry C. Bradley), discover a wheelchair-bound man named John Pren and his Hindu companion Chanda living in their neighborhood. Hyacinth believes Pren and Chanda are Prendergast and Chanda (shocking, right?), so she gets her hands on a copy of Prendergast's old contract, and the Potters' lawyer contacts the surviving American financiers.
Long story slightly less long, Pren admits to being Prendergast, says he shortened his name to try to get away from the curse, says he's in a wheelchair because of the curse, says he sent money to societies that preserve animals sacred to Hindus because of the curse (to no avail), says he raised a gorilla and had him stuffed and mounted in his library after the gorilla died because of the curse, and says he'll pay the financiers, the Potters, and the lawyer a share of the profits as long as they agree to live in his house for a week to see what they're getting into, curse-wise.
You can guess what happens next. The financiers are a hodgepodge of '20s and '30s comedy stereotypes, and they get picked off one-by-one, possibly by a gorilla. The police are called in and do a terrible job, becoming part of the action. (Another thing I enjoyed about
The House of Mystery is its depiction of the police as incompetent authoritarian buffoons.) Much predictable but enjoyable hullabaloo ensues.
That's pretty much it.
The House of Mystery is neither incompetently nor memorably shot, delivers what it promises, and gets the heck out of Dodge before overstaying its welcome. If you're ticking off every old-dark-house and/or primate movie in film history, it's a must-see, but otherwise, eh, it's not that bad. Until next time, have a mildly entertaining week.
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