Clevercell Very disappointing...

Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

Bergorks If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Kimball Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

mark.waltz Take a script overloaded with technological terms that will make no sense to the average viewer and throw in pacing that moves like overweight turtles and snails, and you have essentially the most boring "Z" grade programmer ever made. A few minor amusing moments of stereotypical racist humor (featuring Hattie McDaniel as a pop-eyed maid as well as an Asian butler) and Bela Lugosi playing probably his least well defined character are the only things that will be of interest to most classic movie fans. Of course, the glitch in a scene which has Hattie disappearing into thin air ("Gone With the Wind"?) is of unintentional amusement as well.The basic plot concerns the gathering together of businessmen interested in viewing a new invention called television and their excitement over the musical acts leads to shock when one of the businessmen, speaking on the advantages of T.V., suddenly falls dead. Of course, everybody is questioned, and of course, McDaniel shows fright as she faces the inspector's third degree. "Is my face red?", she asks one of the attendees after being interrogated. June Collyer is second billed (after Lugosi) for playing a do-nothing ingénue, while Lugosi, in his few scenes, is the only real element of class the film, basically becoming the string which ties the convoluted plot together.

cloudcover315 This movie is just bad beyond belief. The acting is horrid, while the cast is simply reciting lines with little feeling. I do wonder where they got these people. The actors just chop up the dialog like a salad. The television idea is just that, with no real sense of development in a hopeless, lifeless plot. The lack of a music track in 1935 is not uncommon, but some sort of musical score was really needed in a suspense movie of this type. I had wanted to see his movie for years. Now I can honestly say I am sorry did. As many a horror movie philosopher has said, somewhere in the middle of an endlessly dark night, "There are some things that are best left alone." This movie, sadly, is one of them. May it rest in peace.

sol1218 (Some Spoilers) Dull whodunit about a televised murder that wasn't planed by the person putting on the show. James Houghland, Charles Hill Mailes,is an idealist when it comes to his new invention of being able to transmit a TV signal across the world. Approched by agents from an unnamed country about buying his new technology he tells them to get lost which makes them very mad at him. Having a demonstration that evening of his new invention Houghland puts the people assembled there to sleep with a long and boring monologue about how we can now see events all across the world on his TV gadget without any relay systems.As Houghland gets to tell us about the continent of Africa and it's inhabitants, as were watching this all on what looks like a 32 inch black & white TV screen, Houghland suddenly looks as if he's either having an attack of indigestion or that he slipped on a banana peal and dies! This believe it or not was the most exciting scene in the whole movie. It's determined that Houghland was murdered, even though there wasn't a mark on him, and the police are called in and seal off the mansion where this TV demonstration was taking place to prevent the murderer from escaping. Bela Lugosi plays a duel role of sorts in the film by being identical twins who are so identical that they have the same first and last names: Arthur Perry. Perry being a top engineer to Houghland in helping him create his new TV invention was on the scene at the time of his death and is suspected of murdering him. It turns out that it was his twin brother, also named Arthur Perry, who was there impersonating him the real Arthur Perry, and trying to cash in, by selling out Houghlands secret by getting an offer he couldn't refuse $100,000.00. This from a rival communication bigwig Donald Jordan, Charles K. French, and then going to work for him. Perry is soon exonerated of the crime of murdering his boss Houghland by being murdered himself by the person who murdered Houghland. By now the movie is going nowhere with the cast just standing around looking off screen for directions from the obviously lost in space director. Then all of a sudden as if he rose from the dead Perry, the other twin brother, appears as if nothing happened to him! He was undercover in the mansion during the entire incident. It turns out that not only is he the one who helped Houghland in his new TV invention but is also a agent for what looks like the FBI and breaks the case wide open. By Perry exposing the killer Dr. Henry Scofeld, Huntly Gordon, who was working for a foreign government who wanted to buy Houghlands invention; but were given the finger by him instead. Using an interstellar frequency, a death ray, Dr. Scofield activated it as Houghland was giving his televised speech that interacted with the TV signal that eventually killed him. With that Dr. Scofield is arrested and casually led away by two plain clothes policemen. Who looked like their going out to dinner with him instead of taking him into custody for murder! With the movie finally over we and the movie cast can now all get back to something far more exhilarating like breathing oxygen. Unbeliveably boring film with a very restrained Bela Lugosi who seemed to have trouble, like everyone else in the movie, staying awake. The ending of the film where Bela, Arthur Perry, slowly and methodically reacted the entire scene of Houghlands death, that was secretly filmed by him, was as complicated as a class in advanced quantum psychic at Harvard University.

Zbigniew_Krycsiwiki This could have and should have been a hell of a lot more fun than it is, but instead we're stuck watching a bunch of people standing around talking for an hour about some sort of "death ray" emitted by a new contraption called a television set. Not much happens here, it's just a lot of talk and standing around, and more standing around and more talking. Even Bela Lugosi (playing two characters!) doesn't have anything to work with here, nothing can save this mess. It might hold slight appeal for those who are interested in an early look at both cinema and television, but horror fans and Lugosi fans will be bored to tears with this one. It's static and slow moving.