Drums of Jeopardy (1931)

Anya Karlov is seduced and then abandoned by Prince Gregor Petroff (Wallace MacDonald), a member of an obnoxious aristocratic Russian family. She dies, and as the family refuse to say which of them is at fault, nor do they show any sign of caring, her father, scientist Boris Karlov (Warner Oland) sets out to take revenge. He’s jailed, but the Russian revolution frees him and gives him new Bolshevik allies, while it forces the Petroff’s to escape to the United States. Karlov is in possession of the Petroff family necklace, known as the Drums of Jeopardy, which had been given to his daughter to get her into bed. Karlov sends one ruby “drum” to each victim before he strikes. All of which leads to a showdown between Karlov, his always loyal assistant Peter (Mischa Auer), and his gang of Bolsheviks verses heroic Prince Nicholas Petroff (Lloyd Hughes), sleazy Gregor, US agent Martin Kent (Hale Hamilton), and two women they stumble upon, the beautiful Kitty Conover (June Collyer) and her aunt Abbie (Clara Blandick), and as this is the 1930s, it happens in an old dark house.

I wonder how this played in 1931. There seemed to be a lot of sympathetic portrayals of White Russians at the time, so were escaping Russian nobles automatically seen positively? Karlov is treated more and more villainously as we go along, although I found him completely reasonable. His hatred is justified. Gregor is made out to be scum, from beginning to end. However the film really wants me to like Nicholas and I have a hard time buying into him. He knew that his brother caused the girl’s death, and he was there when his grandfather announced that peasants have no right to speak to them. So sure, he’s better than his brother, but hero? Nah. Really all that was needed was a scene where he had to deal with the dark deeds of his family, or at least have to explain to his sudden love interest just why he’s being hunted: “Yes Kitty, Karlov is a mad man, but we drove him mad, callously taking from him the one thing he loved.” Oh well.

Outside of that, Drums of Jeopardy is a cracking little thriller. Sure, it’s stagy, with unexciting camera work and broad acting, but this was 1931, and for the time, it’s above the average in every category, and significantly so for a picture from a Poverty Row studio. It is also fast moving and dramatic, with some nice horror scenes (I love the murder that we see via shadows). Oland, better known for his many Charlie Chan films, is a fun villain, and his broad portrayal is fitting for a mad scientist. I couldn’t tell what kind of scientist he was supposed to be, and for the story, he needn’t have been one at all, but I like the looks of his lab at the beginning.

Kitty is surprisingly sharp and filled with agency for a female in ‘30s horror. She’s likable, makes firm decisions, and is cleverer than everyone else. It’s refreshing, And Aunt Abbie is several notches above the normal comic relief character. She isn’t stupid, nor does she scream constantly, and she’s the second most on-the-ball after Kitty.

The ending is unsatisfactory and Drums of Jeopardy doesn’t excel in any way (and it has inappropriately bouncy title music), but it isn’t bad for 1930s semi-horror. As it has long since been out of copyright (its original negatives were most likely burned with many others to make the fires look more spectacular in Gone With the Wind… Yeah, I’m not kidding), it’s easy to find for free.

To modern audiences, and I suspect to many at the time, the most interesting element is the similarity of the name Boris Karlov with that of horror icon Boris Karloff. It’s no accident. William Henry Pratt took his stage name of Boris Karloff from the novel Drums of Jeopardy that was the source first of a silent film, and then of this.