A Major Disappointment

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Under the inspired advertising slogan, "Horler for Excitement", Sydney Horler became an extremely popular and prolific writer in the 1930s. Under his own name and two pseudonyms, he published over 150 books. If this picturization of The House of Secrets represents a fair sample of his plotting and characterization abilities, the public was indeed sold a counterfeit, second-rate product. Not only are Horler's plots outrageously dependent on the most incredible co-incidences, but his characters are the leftovers of impossible melodrama. No attempt is made at vivifying these walking pasteboards with any semblances of credibility - let alone originality. And as for the dialogue, Horler's is so riddled and weighed down with the cliched, the mundane and the flatly ridiculous as to make it all seem as if the author's real intention was to write a spoof of Victorian melodrama, complete with energetic but completely smitten hero, beautiful but darkly mysterious heroine, secretive yet overly protective father, thuggish but stupid gangsters, helpful but simple-minded domestics, well-spoken but devious city men, dumb but implacable policemen, aloof yet timely detectives. Add a cackling lunatic or two, a couple of creepy henchmen and a blackmailing stranger (who disappears from the tale after receiving an elaborate introduction) and you have The House of Secrets. A witless spoof, admittedly, but even this possible glimmer in the Horler darkness is negated by the deadly dull seriousness of all the actors on the screen - except Syd Saylor - who play this stupefying nonsense through from beginning to end with not so much as a twinkle of the eye, let alone tongues firmly in cheeks. No wonder Sidney Blackmer doesn't include this feeble effort in his filmography! 64 minutes - it seemed more like 164!

This film has what it takes to capture my interest by description: "Two men stumble into an old mansion, and get involved with a crazed scientist, torture chambers and sinister medical experiments." Well this film is anything but interesting to me, it's not as good as it sounds like it would be. It's rather lame and bored me while watching. Could not hold my interest. Maybe is there were a different group of actors that I find enjoyable to watch then I would have liked this film. IDK but I did find the film a bore the way it was played out or written.3/10

An American, who has inherited a stately British house, travels to the UK to take ownership of his new estate. What he finds though, are a group of shady individuals living in it, who are seemingly up to no good. Our hero then tries to get to the bottom of this mysterious situation.House of Secrets is another in the seemingly endless cycle of 30's mystery films. I found it all-in-all to be one of the more enjoyable ones, as there are quite a few plot threads going on, so the film never drags. When it comes to old creaky Poverty Row movies you do have to keep your expectations in check, as these old flicks do have definite limitations. This one does have many of the deficits of these pictures – flat dialogue, a lack of suspense and a ridiculous plot – but it at least tries to keep us entertained throughout with plenty of characters and plot avenues. So overall, as these films go, this one's not too bad at all.

"House of Secrets" was a second feature when it came out before World War II. Directed by Roland D. Reed, whose major career in film was as an editor and a producer, this is a mystery with many unnecessarily improbable twists Good acting and occasional crisp dialog make the movie enjoyable.Leslie Fenton, who made a lot of forgettable and forgotten flicks, is Barry, an American who on the channel ferry to Dover rescues very pretty Julie, Muriel Evans, from the clutches of a cad. A violent one at that. Instantly smitten, he defers returning to the states so as to find Julie in London. Despite being rescued by this gallant, she refused to give him her name, address or measurements.Fortuitously, Barry is called to a solicitor's office where he is told that an unknown and eccentric uncle bequeathed an ancient manor house to him. But on arriving to take possession he's driven off by dogs, the butler and a gun-wielding older guy. Coincidence of coincidences, Julie is residing at this manor. Only happens in the movies.What follows is a combination of typical thirties crime genre topped by a mysterious house, possible mad doctor caper. Always the gentleman, Barry pursues Julie who endlessly tells him to stay away from HIS house. Scotland Yard and even the Home Secretary is entangled in the story as Barry remains passionately persistent in trying to see Julie at HIS house from which he's repeatedly barred.Not the most convincing of plots but some nice lines - including a back and forth between Barry and his solicitor as they attempt to translate Anglo-American slang for each other to facilitate understanding.Yep, it's a "B+." Alpha has this super bargain DVD out as part of its very large release of old, pre-war flicks (I paid $4.99).So try and catch it.6/10.