Sun 7 Oct 2018
An Archived Movie Review: THE UNHOLY NIGHT (1929).
Posted by Steve under Mystery movies , Reviews[5] Comments
THE UNHOLY NIGHT. MGM, 1929. Ernest Torrence, Roland Young, Dorothy Sebastian, Natalie Moorhead (and Boris Karloff, uncredited). Director: Lionel Barrymore.
This movie, only 60 years old [and now nearly 90], has almost everything. (If it were rated today, it would get a “G”, and so it can’t have everything.) What it does have is: a fog covering all of London, a series of murders — the victims all members of a British regiment from 1915 …
… as well as a wealthy mansion, suspicious butlers, a legendary “green ghost,” a seance, a major with a scarred face, and a million pound legacy of hatred (left to the surviving members of the regiment by a former officer who was booted out). Stir and boil.
October 7th, 2018 at 5:26 am
It stalls out at times, and I gave the ending a hearty “Hunh?” but Rolannd Young is fun to watch.
October 7th, 2018 at 6:26 pm
Young and Torrance are usually fun to watch.
October 8th, 2018 at 11:25 am
Is this an attempt by MGM to create an “all talking” mystery thriller two years before Universal’s Dracula?
October 8th, 2018 at 1:11 pm
If not the first, it’s certainly among the earliest.
October 18th, 2023 at 3:51 pm
I gotta say, this one was working right up till the finale – No huge spoiler to say that there is a gathering of the survivors and all is revealed… But, unfortunately there appear to be some details about the way things were done that are not made clear and nothing really made much sense. But, up till then… Fun film.