In the castle of Robert von Helldorf (Lionel Atwill) they are celebrating the 21st birthday of his daughter Irene (Gloria Stuart). In attendance are her three suitors, Captain Walter Brink (Paul Lukas), reporter Frank Faber (Onslow Stevens), and brash Thomas Brandt (William Janney). The castle and grounds also contain a groups of extremely suspicious-acting servants. The topic turns to a discussion of the Blue Room, a room in the castle that has been locked for years because of three mysterious deaths that occurred there, all at the stroke of 1:00am. To impress Irene, Thomas suggests that he’ll show his bravery by sleeping in the Blue Room tonight, and that the others do so on the two following nights. These leads to disappearances and deaths, and the summoning of Police Commissioner Forster (Edward Arnold).
As this was supposedly Universal’s lowest budget picture for the year, it shows what a real studio can do. I’ve been watching a lot of Poverty Row Old Dark House features lately, and none of them have this kind of quality. This may have been a cheep picture, but it looks great. The house interiors are ornate, attractive, yet slightly creepy. There’s enough corridors and rooms to get lost in. It got a boost in this regard from the left over sets from James Whale’s The Old Dark House as well as the castle exterior shots being taken from the first version of this story, the German Geheimnis des blauen Zimmers.
It’s shot in that wonderful high contrast B&W that I expect from 1940s A-Pictures. Add in tight editing and we’ve got a quality production.
It also has an excellent cast of second-stringers. Atwill is one of the unsung heroes of ‘30s horror and suspense, a solid actor who didn’t dominate, but could hold a scene together. Arnold is another recognizable face; too often cast as the heavy in gangster films, he has a good deal of charm to go with his strength. Lukas tended to be restricted due to his accent, but he was a competent actor and here supplies grace and style. And Stuart is lovely, even if she does little besides scream and tremble.
Even with the multiple mysterious, Secret of the Blue Room plays fairer than most Old Dark House films, with a mystery that’s solvable and follows from what we’ve seen (perhaps a little too solvable). Surprisingly it doesn’t explain what happened in the past, but sticks with the current mystery(ies). While it earns its horror film credentials on its chilling aura alone, I suspect this will play better for modern mystery fans than horror fans.
Universal remade it twice, first adding wacky comedy for The Missing Guest (1938) and then musical numbers for Murder in the Blue Room (1944). I’ve only been able to find substandard video copies of Geheimnis des blauen Zimmers (1932), without subtitles, and my German is poor. It looks as if Secret of the Blue Room was a close remake with some scenes staged to match it.