Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever

Protraph Lack of good storyline.

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

mark.waltz From the opening narration of dead matriarch Phoebe Martin giving the back story of her deranged family, "The Unknown" is several notches above the usual programmer. Part of the "I Love a Mystery" series done briefly at Columbia in the mid 40's, this one is the best, although the first one is pretty neat, too. However, for the most part, this one is unrelated to the first two. They had a bit of a comic overtone, while this one has a Gothic feel to it, something like "Rebecca". If not as well known or as polished as that film, it is equally spooky. The opening segment dramatizes the accidental death of the family patriarch which ultimately leads to the family's desolation into being reduced to being totally reclusive from once the cream of society. When a young girl named Nina (Jeff Donnell) arrives after the death of Grandmother Martin, she quickly discovers her mentally disturbed mother (Karen Morley) who was driven to insanity by being forced to give up her husband, Nina's father. Soon, it's apparent that someone is trying to get Nina out of the way and her attorneys must help her find out who the culprit is before it's too late. This is where a lot of ingenious surprises come in, and there are lots of them.

matthewwave-1 Very odd to see someone state that Jeff Donnell is the biggest-name draw here, given that the star is Karen Morley. Granted, Morley wasn't the biggest movie star ever, but, I'd think that Dinner at Eight and Scarface alone would provide her a bigger profile than Donnell. And she also managed to appear in a few other special, noteworthy flicks, such as The Mask of Fu Manchu, Gabriel over the White House and Vidor's great, if flawed, Our Daily Bread. Even The Sin of Madelon Claudet and Mata Hari.Plus, Morley's pretty boss in this film. She really anchors it and makes her character quite a sympathetic one. It really is her film.As for the rest -- it's a fun, minor little B-mystery with nice horror touches. As are the other I Love a Mystery flicks. Nothing great, but certainly fun for mystery, horror and B-movie fans, the kind of small, old, and old-fashioned movie that deservedly endears itself to certain kinds fans (I'm one of them).Plus, this one had really nice Southern Gothic atmosphere. I love it when a cheap film can effectively create and define a relatively small space and generate a real (especially spooky) atmosphere. (Can you tell that I'm a big-ass Val Lewton fan? Or that Horror Hotel/City of the Dead is one of my very favorite horror movies?)I just saw all three of the ILaM flicks on TCM the other early AM and enjoyed the other two similarly. Fairly ambitious in ideas and plot twists, far less so in their makers' ability to turn those thoughts into fully-realized cinema – and fun, old-fashioned treats, all in all. Bannon is hardly a great actor, but he sure as heck is nice to look at, and Yarborough has his moments. And each film has a few special bonuses in its "case-specific" cast: I Love a Mystery has the great Nina (My Name is Julia Ross) Foch and legendary screen creep George Macready; The Devil's Mask has Anita ("Ginger's Mom") Louise and Frank Mayo, an actor who intrigued me greatly just a while back on TCM with his terrific starring performance in Vidor's keen silent melodrama, Wild Oranges (talk about creating and defining a small, atmospheric space!), making me wish he'd been given so much more to do in his career; The Unknown has not only has Morley and Donnell but also, for the Val Lewton fan, The Leopard Man's James Bell!Matthew

Neil Doyle Although there's a little too much Southern exposition to set the stage for a present day story, THE UNKNOWN is a better than average programmer in the Columbia studio's "I Love A Mystery" series. Getting to the heart of the story takes up too much time at the start, but once the story starts dealing with the mysterious things going on in an old Southern mansion, it keeps building interest until the mystery is solved.The cast is an interesting one, even though there are hardly any big names involved. KAREN MORLEY is the troubled woman on the brink of madness, ROBERT WILCOX is her lover who has been banished from the grounds, JIM BANNON is Jack Packard, the detective, and BARTON YARBOROUGH is again his partner. JEFF DONNELL is the lady who stands to win an inheritance and MARK ROBERTS is the young lawyer designated to read the will.All of it is directed in nimble style by Henry Levin, an old hand at these sort of programmers and, despite the low budget, given some handsome settings.Summing up: Gets off to a slow start but gradually builds interest.

jim riecken (youroldpaljim) As mentioned by "Norm", this film is an entry in Columbia studios "I Love a Mystery" series based on the popular radio program. This deals with the spooky going ons at the reading of a will. The film is set in an old southern mansion. As is often with these types of films, there is an aristocratic family with a "skeleton in the closet." This kind of plot was common in films since the early thirties but would soon go out of style.THE UNKNOWN is only a moderately entertaining mystery with a few atmospheric moments. It is one of those movies that one watches with mild interest but little enthusiasm.