Captivating movie !

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

BEHIND THE MASK (Columbia, 1932), directed by John Francis Dillon, with its Halloween sounding title and Boris Karloff in the cast, one should be expecting a horror movie. Released a little after his overnight success as The Monster in FRANKENSTEIN (Universal, 1931), naturally the Karloff name was its selling point, even if Karloff assumes third billing under its leading players, Jack Holt and Constance Cummings. Having some Columbia releases to his name where Karloff was not yet an established screen personality, he did make an impression in a prior prison melodrama of THE CRIMINAL CODE (1930), which lead to other films for that studio before acquiring immortality at Universal where 1932 released such memorable Karloff performances in his newfound genre of mystery and horror as THE OLD DARK HOUSE and THE MUMMY. While BEHIND THE MASK belongs mostly to Jack Holt, it's often categorized as a Karloff motion picture.The story introduces two men, Quinn (Jack Holt) and Jim Henderson (Boris Karloff), prisoners at Sing Sing Prison, conversing during recreation period where Henderson, expecting to be "sprung out" any day now, tells Quinn where they are to meet upon his release. Later, Quinn breaks out of prison. During a heavy rain storm, he arranges a self-inflicted gunshot wound on his shoulder to gain access into the Arnold household. Posing as an escaped convict hiding from the police, Quinn gains enough sympathy and treatment from Julie (Constance Cummings). It so happens that Quinn, actually Jack Hart of the Secret Service, assigned under Captain E.J. Hawkes (Willard Robertson), is there to learn about her father's (Claude King) activities and his possible connection with a narcotics ring leader, the mysterious Mr. X, whom he and anyone else associated in his operation of illegal activities, has never seen. Taken under Julies confidence, Hart remains, working as her personal chauffeur. Also employed at the Arnold household is Edwards (Bertha Mann), a housekeeper and undercover spy reporting her daily activities by telephone where the recording is saved onto Mr. X's hidden dicta-phone. After Henderson's release, he reports to his physician, August Steiner (Edward Van Sloan), also part of the narcotics ring, where he resumes his activities as the doctor's henchman. After three murders on those coming close to learning the identity of Mr. X, the fourth victim being Inspector Burke (Thomas E. Jackson), it's not up to Hart to fulfill his mission to expose the identity of Mr. X before any more lives are lost, including his own.Often exploited as a horror film, especially when sold to television in the late 1950s as part of its weekly horror film night festivals, the only elements BEHIND THE MASK has pertaining to thrillers include scenes involving digging up a body from a cemetery to perform an autopsy, and another where the hidden faced Mr. X attempts to do away with one of his victims tied down on an operating table, otherwise BEHIND THE MASK is simply a spy mystery. It's also one of the very few of many Jack Holt programmers during his Columbia period (1929-1940) to be leased to television, yet, with conflicting movies bearing the same title, ranging from a 1946 Monogram/"Shadow" mystery, the 1958 British made melodrama starring Michael Redgrave, or even the extended THE FACE BEHIND THE MASK (1941) with Peter Lorre, many of which have stirred up confusion on the TV Guide listings back in the sixties and seventies when any one of these titles aired in place over the 1932 edition. BEHIND THE MASK of 1932 did become part of New York City's own "Creature Feature Theater" where I finally got to see it occasionally during its semi-annual broadcasts between 1974 and 1980.Regardless of its flaws, Karloff slightly miscast as an off-camera murderous henchman with little to do by the midway point; Constance Cummings doing her part as the fur coat wearing heroine concerned about the outcome of both her father and new chauffeur; and Edward Van Sloan in a sort of role that definitely would have been Karloff's had BEHIND THE MASK been produced during his "mad scientist" period of the late 1930s, the film, overall, is not bad.Never distributed to home video, BEHIND THE MASK has come around in recent years on Turner Classic Movies (2009-11), equipped with 1940s Columbia logo insertion lifted from its latter theatrical reissues, still remains a forgotten item from the Columbia library, filmography of Jack Holt and especially Boris Karloff, whom, without Karloff in the cast, BEHIND THE MASK would either be lost to oblivion or available and forgotten in some dark movie vault. (** masks)

This is real Saturday matinée serial stuff, the nonsense plot complete with a drug-running gang of baddies in thrall to a nameless boss that they contact by leaving a message on a primitive Dictaphone's answering machine. Holt is pathetic as a secret service man supposedly infiltrating the gang. Van Sloan plays a villainous M.D. who, for no reason that's apparent, spends his spare time hovering in a room with flashing lights and a Jacob's ladder. His make-up and accent have a distinctly Semitic (or anti-Semitic) shade, but his is the only performance of much interest in the film. The finale does have a nice moment. As Van Sloan prepares to perform a fatal operation on Holt, without anesthesia, he says, "You will be able to bear the pain as I cut through your skin" (demonstrating long cut with finger). "It is only when I cut into your inner parts that you will realize that you are HAVING AN EXPERIENCE!" He then quotes Nietzsche on unbearable pain, and says, "We will find out if this is merely an aphorism." In a intentionally cute switch, it is the girl who saves the nearly nude man bound to the operating table. (That's about all the talented Constance Cummings is given to do in this film.) The explanation of her sudden appearance–"How did you get here?" "His gun dropped to the floor and I grabbed it."–is about as perfunctory as the rest of the film. Is the leader of the Citizens Reform Committee secretly the head of the gang? What do YOU think?

A macabre mystery with many elements of the supernatural/shudder scientific genres.Boris Karloff plays a lead henchman in the service of a mysterious Mr. X. His performance does not suggest a red herring role, but he is sinister enough as a grim-faced gangster to keep one's interest throughout the picture. Early on, it seems possible that the sinister Dr. Steiner played by Edward van Sloan may seem to be a more likely candidate for Mr. X., but his performance raises enough doubts to keep the viewer in a constant state of suspense.A very fine "B" feature for the night owl crowd.7/10.Dan Basinger

This film was made during the same period as "The Criminal Code" by the same studio. It also used some of the same sets and film footage. During this period,"Frankenstein" was released and Columbia decided to play up Karloff's name and the picture's horror aspects in the advertising. But technically, it is not a horror film. It is exploited as another horror picture, this doesn't horrify sufficiently to class with preceding baby-scarers. The scare stuff seems tossed in regardless of where it fits, but it gets results because KARLOFF's threatening pan makes him a natural for his part.