Fast-talking reporter ‘Scoop’ Hanlon (Paul Kelly) is stuck doing an advice column, so is willing to accept any story to get him back in the big leagues, and the one his editor offers is on the haunted Blue Room of a nearby estate, where people have died in the past. There is a party at the estate to mark the reopening of the room, and a reporter will not be welcome, so he’ll have to sneak in. When Scoop is temporarily out of the way, Frank Baldrich (Selmer Jackson), his niece Stephanie Kirkland (Constance Moore), Dr. Carroll (Edwin Stanley), and overly-eager Larry Dearden (William Lundigan) discuss the dark history of the room. Larry announces his plans to sleep there that night to show there’s nothing to be scared of, and suggests that others do the same on the next few night. Naturally this leads to disappearances and deaths, and the return of Scoop, as well as a pair of ex-cons posing as police.
This is the third version of the Blue Room story, and second from Universal (the previous being 1933’s Secret of the Blue Room), and they’d do it again in 1944 as Murder in the Blue Room. The general opinion is that this is the weakest version, and I agree, at least with regard to the English language versions (without subtitles the German version was a bit difficult for me to follow).
This one has the least distinguished and distinguishable cast and unexciting cinematography, but most of the horror stuff is passable. However, The Missing Guest adds in comedy elements in the form of the cocky lead, two wacky sidekicks, and some newspaper office silliness, and none of it is funny. Scoop is an obnoxious character of a type that popped up in a lot of films of the ‘30s. He’s fast-talking, rude, pushy, reckless, sarcastic and willing to do anything to get the story. He fails both as an engaging or exciting lead and as a comedy protagonist. The fake police are worse, shaking and squealing in terror, and spewing dialog that belongs in a children’s picture. From a marketing standpoint I see why they wanted to retool the story into more of a comedy as straightforward Dark House Movies seemed to have run their course, but they put no effort into the change. There’s no wit, and no effort to make the jokes fit into a horror movie. They’re just loud. And all that goofing about kills the tension the story needs.
If this was the only version, I might give it a tepid recommendation for the thriller aspects, but as you can watch the Secret of the Blue Room instead, there’s no reason to bother with this.