Unlimitedia Sick Product of a Sick System

SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

Numerootno A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Yvonne Jodi Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

bensonmum2 Harold Dunlap (Charles Russell) commits a murder on what he believes to be a deserted train platform. However, the platform isn't as empty as it seems. The witness is a young boy named Mike (Dale Belding) who, at first, isn't quite sure what he's seen. Over time, however, Mike understands he's seen a murder. With Dunlap closing in, can he escape in time and notify the authorities before he becomes the next victim.Inner Sanctum will never make it on a "Best of Film Noir" list, but it's a decent little film that I found entertaining. Dunlap (Charles Russell), is a ruthless character, capable of just about anything - even murdering a child. Hiding in plain sight in the same boarding house where Mike lives is a nice touch that leads to some interesting situations. Dunlap makes several attempts to get rid of young Mike - like suggesting he go out at night to see the flooded river. The fact that Dunlap and Mike share a room only adds to the tension. The framing device used to tell the story is also a nice touch. At first I thought having a psychic telling Dunlap's story to a stranger was odd and misplaced, but it all makes sense in the end. At 62 minutes, Lew Landers' direction is snappy with, other than one notable exception - the beer can scene, no wasted minutes. The film moves at a nice pace. The films' technical aspects (lighting, cinematography, set design, etc.) are all more than adequate - falling somewhere between that of a big studio production on one end and a Poverty Row production on the other.While I could probably list a number of things about the Inner Sanctum that bothered me (like the annoying Dale Belding or the misplaced comedy for example), I suppose my chief complaint would be the lack of any real character development. We know Dunlap is a murderer and a killer, but we have not idea why or what motivates him. He's just a murderer - nothing more. He's not a fully fleshed-out, three dimensional person. Another example, when another boarding house tenant, Jean Maxwell (Mary Beth Hughes), falls for Dunlap, there's really no reason for it to happen. She falls for Dunlap because she's expected to fall for Dunlap. While the runtime might have made for a quick moving film, it hurts the overall movie by cutting out the time that might have been devoted to better understanding the characters and their motivations. In the end, the good outweighs the bad and I can easily rate Inner Sanctum a 6/10.

mstomaso Lew Landers - perhaps one of the more diversified of early Hollywood's hyper-prolific B-film-factory directors, brought together a cast of relative unknowns and talented aging stars into a stylish, fairly suspenseful, and tightly plotted noir offering. Landers typically directed between 7 and 9 films per year in the 1940s and early 1950s, but in 1948, when Inner Sanctum was released, this was one of only three films from him. The great Fritz Lieber opens the film by demonstrating his clairvoyance to a rather silly but pretty young woman on a train and then offering her a warning. Lieber then launches into the story and we are guided into the action of this very strangely misnamed film. Inner Sanctum tells the story of a despicable and completely unsympathetic murderer (Charles Russell) whose dirty deed is, in part, witnessed by an energetic youth (Dan Belding). The somewhat energetic young boy isn't quite sure what he has seen, and the killer seems to think he is home free after driving through a flooded country and hitching a ride to a local boarding house. Unfortunately for him, paranoia, the kid, and a smart pretty young lady are waiting for him there. With the apparent exception of Russell's character the film makes good use of the moral ambiguity of most noir films, and gives the genre a few unique spins. Like most femme fatales, Mary Beth Hughes' character is a lot smarter than her male counterpart, and she certainly dresses and plays the part, but she isn't really a femme fatale in the usual sense. The use of the young Dan Belding (who gives one of the best performances of the film) as the killer's primary nemesis and, very possibly, his next victim, gives the film a fairly unique edge, and the trapped, claustrophobic feeling of the boarding house and the flooded river land around it, which may have been a simple plot device designed to save the production budget, help to sustain the suspense. No spoilers here, but I will say that the film has a few tricks up its sleeves which are worth sticking around for. Also notable for the unusual casting of the great Lee Patrick in the role of the uncharacteristically typical 30-something mom of Belding's character.

utgard14 This is a cool little B movie that I almost didn't give a shot, but ultimately did because it has the Inner Sanctum title. It starts on a train, where a creepy dude with white hair stares at a woman and hints that he has clairvoyant powers. The woman, who is a bit of a chore to talk to honestly, complains about her boring fiancé and the boring train ride. So the creepy guy tells her a story, which plays out over the course of the hour and proves to be relevant to her in a twist at the end. The story is about a man who impulsively commits a murder at night and then tries to escape, but bad weather forces him back into the town where the murder was committed. Ironically he winds up staying in a boarding home run by the mother of a boy who witnessed the murder without realizing it at the time.Fritz Leiber's turn as the clairvoyant on the train is pretty interesting for the time. There's something so weird about him and the way his character's scenes play out. I can't think of anything else quite like it in horror or mystery films of that era. Charles Russell is good as the guy not trying quite hard enough to get away with murder. Dale Belding plays the kid and he's as corny as they come but offers quite a bit of unintended comedy ("Think of all the things I could be doing right now -- if it wasn't for my mother."). I got 'low-budget Shadow of a Doubt vibes' from this film and most of that comes from the scenes between Russell and Belding. The supporting cast, full of several comic relief characters, is entertaining without distracting too much from the serious plot.This is one of those movies where its cheap trappings works in its favor. The murkiness of many scenes helps add to the creepy atmosphere. The script is surprisingly decent with a number of memorable little lines. Director Lew Landers manages to build suspense effectively in key scenes. It's not a showy piece of work but it's impressive for what it is. By the way, this is not a part of Universal's Inner Sanctum anthology series from the 1940s starring Lon Chaney, Jr.

Spikeopath Inner Sanctum is directed by Lew Landers and written by Jerome T. Gollard. It stars Charles Russell, Mary Beth Hughes, Dale Belding, Billy House, Fritz Leiber, Nana Bryant and Lee Patrick. Music is by Leon Klatzkin and cinematography by Allen G. Siegler.A psychic tells a woman, Marie Kembar (Eve Miller), a story on board a train. He tells of a man, Harold Dunlap (Russell), who after killing a woman makes his way into town and finds he can't leave after a flood renders all residents confined to the area. Taking lodgings in a boarding house, Dunlap finds he is sharing a room with the only witness to his crime... Clocking in at just over an hour in length, Inner Sanctum is very much in the vein of a quintessential "B" programmer. Part noir suspenser, part Twilight Zone mystery, it's a quirky little picture that manages to blend off-kilter humour with genuine tenseness. Starting off with the ambiguously filmed killing of a woman, who is then unceremoniously dumped on the observation platform of a departing train, the film then unravels in small town Americana in a manner befitting Hitchcock. Enter a group of colourful/eccentric/shifty characters in one boarding house and the story explodes in to an array of fakes, fancies, vagaries of fate, youthful innocence and dangerous sexual attractions. All filmed in a deliberately noir style of murky shades and half lights.The production value is inevitably low, but it works in the narrative's favour. The acting is a mixed bag, but there is nothing here to hurt the flow or feel of the picture. Standing out are Russell (The Purple Heart) who is wonderfully sly and cunning, Patrick (The Maltese Falcon/Mildred Pierce) who plays the harried mother role with verve and doting dominance, and young Belding has the requisite amount of bratty boyishness and confused innocence. But best of the bunch is Hughes (The Great Flamarion/The Ox-Bow Incident), who slinks her way through the movie making moves on Dunlap even when she knows what he has done! Yes she's that desperate to thrive on danger and get out of this small town nowhereville. This characterisation is just one of the many pessimistic touches that help to make Inner Sanctum a rewarding experience. Killer ending as well! 7/10