MYSTERY HOUSE (1938)

The fourth and final B-mystery featuring nurse Sarah Keate, creation of writer Mignon Eberhart, played here by Ann Sheridan. This is the weakest of the batch, though it has a promising set-up. During a getaway weekend at his hunting lodge, businessman Eric Stanley breaks the news to his partners that he will need to use their personal securities to shore up the company; this news doesn't sit well with a couple of the younger partners (William Hopper and Anthony Averill) and that night, Stanley is found dead in his room, apparently a suicide--though we know that he was shot by someone else and the gun planted in his hand later. Sheridan, present at the lodge as nurse to Stanley's aged aunt (Elspeth Dudgeon), is asked by Stanley's niece to call in her detective boyfriend, Lance O'Leary (Dick Purcell). When all the relatives and guests are gathered at the lodge again, Purcell and Sheridan do some sleuthing and, during a snowstorm that keeps everyone from leaving the property, they discover who the guilty party is, but not before the body count rises. The snowbound element has some potential, but is mostly wasted, and a needed mood of gloom and doom is never developed very well--the lighting is much too bright and the sets too sparse. Purcell is the weakest male lead of the four (in previous movies, the boyfriend was played by Guy Kibbee, Patric Knowles, and Lyle Talbot) and one of the biggest reasons this short hour-long film feels too long. Sheridan is fine but doesn't have enough to do. Dudgeon is good but the rest are merely serviceable. Only true-blue Nurse Sarah fans will need to see this one: the others are mentioned in my review of WHILE THE PATIENT SLEPT. [TCM]