The manager of Kay Kyser’s band books them for a birthday party bash for an heiress at a spooky mansion, where sinister forces try to kill her.
11-22-1940
1h 37m
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Main Cast
Movie Details
Production Info
Director:
David Butler
Production:
RKO Radio Pictures
Key Crew
Screenplay:
James V. Kern
Story:
James V. Kern
Story:
David Butler
Producer:
David Butler
Cinematography:
Frank Redman
Locations and Languages
Country:
US
Filming:
US
Languages:
en
Main Cast
Kay Kyser
Bandleader and radio personality memorable for his "Kollege of Musical Knowledge". Often sporting his trademark mortarboard and gown, he appeared with his band in a few World War II-era movies.
Date of Birth 18 June 1905, Rocky Mount, North Carolina, USA
Date of Death 23 July 1985, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA (heart attack)
Peter Lorre (26 June 1904 – 23 March 1964) was an Austrian-American actor frequently typecast as a sinister foreigner.
He caused an international sensation in 1931 with his portrayal of a serial killer who preys on little girls in the German film M. Later he became a popular featured player in Hollywood crime films and mysteries, notably alongside Humphrey Bogart and Sydney Greenstreet, and as the star of the successful Mr. Moto detective series.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Peter Lorre, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Boris Karloff (November 23, 1887 – February 2, 1969), whose real name was William Henry Pratt, was an English-born actor who emigrated to Canada in 1909. Karloff is best remembered for his roles in horror films and his portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein (1931), Bride of Frankenstein (1935), and Son of Frankenstein (1939). His popularity following Frankenstein was such that for a brief time he was billed simply as "Karloff" or "Karloff the Uncanny". His best-known non-horror role is as the Grinch in the television special of Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas!.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Boris Karloff, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Bela Lugosi (born Bela Ferenc Dezso Blasko) was a Hungarian stage, screen, and television actor. He was born on October 20, 1882 and passed away on August 16, 1956. He is best remembered for his iconic portrayal of Count Dracula in the classic 1931 Dracula film.
Dennis O'Keefe (March 29, 1908 – August 31, 1968) was an American actor. He was the son of Irish vaudevillians working in the United States. As a small child he joined his parents' act and later wrote skits for the stage.
O'Keefe started in films as an extra in the early 1930s. After a small but impressive role in Saratoga, Clark Gable recommended O'Keefe to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which signed him to a contract in 1937. His film roles were bigger after that, starting with The Bad Man of Brimstone and Burn 'Em Up O'Connor.
O'Keefe left MGM around 1940 but continued to work in mostly lower budget productions. In the 1950s he did some directing, wrote mystery stories and by the mid-1950s found work on television shows such as Justice, The Martha Raye Show, The Ford Show as well as his own series The Dennis O'Keefe Show.
From Wikipedia
Alma Kruger (September 13, 1868 or 1871 – April 5, 1960) was an American actress.
Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Kruger had a long career on stage before appearing in films. From 1907 to 1935, she featured in theatre plays on Broadway, mostly in Shakespearean plays such as Hamlet (as Gertrude), Twelfth Night (as Olivia), Taming of the Shrew (Widow), and The Merchant of Venice (Nerissa).
She appeared in her first film while in her sixties, These Three (1936). She then proceeded to act in over forty films in the space of little more than a decade. Among her notable roles was Nurse Molly Byrd, the superintendent of nurses in the popular Dr. Kildare/Dr. Gillespie film series, appearing in all but the first two of the sixteen movies.
She portrayed Empress Maria Theresa of Austria in Marie Antoinette (1938) and the almost mother-in-law of Rosalind Russell's lead character in His Girl Friday (1940). In 1942, she appeared as the subversive society matron Henrietta Sutton in Alfred Hitchcock's Saboteur (1942). Kruger's last film appearance was in the film, Forever Amber (1947).
Virginia Ellen Simms (May 25, 1913 – April 4, 1994) was an American popular singer and film actress. Simms sang with big bands and labeled with Dinah Shore, Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald, Jo Stafford, and others. She also worked as an MGM and Universal film actress and appeared in 11 movies from 1939 to 1951, when she retired.
Jeff Corey (August 10, 1914 – August 16, 2002) was an American stage and screen actor and director who became a well-respected acting teacher after being blacklisted in the 1950s.
a B movie and serial actress of the 1940s. Born Louise Gunter in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, she attended Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York. Moving to Hollywood, Currie enrolled in Max Reinhardt's drama school. “At the time, I was not necessarily a movie fan, but once I came to California, of course, that’s what California’s all about, the movie industry.” Attracting the interest of movie scouts while appearing in one of the school’s stage productions, Currie surprised them by expressing no desire at that point to enter movies. She wanted to wait until she graduated, and was better equipped as an actress, before she decided her next career move. When she was ready, she signed with agent Sue Carol. After she made a movie at Columbia, Harry Cohn wanted to put her under contract, but Currie would have none of it – she thought it “would maybe be more interesting to freelance.” She stated in 1999 that that was “more fun for me because I was able to pick and choose and do what I wanted, rather than all the little contract players who had to do exactly as they were told and go into films that they didn’t want or like. So, I had my independence, and I chose to do it that way.” The not-overly-ambitious Currie worked steadily during the next few years, with small, uncredited parts in As and leads in Poverty Row flicks. She found herself in a bunch of Westerns – her bullwhip-carrying role in GUN TOWN was her favorite – and also as the heroine in Bela Lugosi’s THE APE MAN. She was again menaced by Bela in VOODOO MAN. Her most enduring and fondly remembered credit is ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN MARVEL, considered by many the greatest cliffhanger of all time; two years later, she acted for 12 episodes opposite another serial marvel: THE MASKED MARVEL. Currie enjoyed the fast-paced shooting schedules of her B movies and serials: “Fortunately, I had enough training that I could do my scenes and not mess them up, not muff the lines. And I thought that was more stimulating and interesting than pictures like CITIZEN KANE [in which she played a reporter], where you just sat on a set for endless hours, doing nothing – which to me was just a trial and a bore. So I sort of enjoyed the activity, and the fact that you could do something quickly and do it well, and have it finished... But I’m sure that most of the people that started with big A productions would never have understood that, or been able to cope with it!”
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bess Flowers (November 23, 1898 – July 28, 1984) was an American actress. By some counts considered the most prolific actress in the history of Hollywood, she was known as "The Queen of the Hollywood Extras," appearing in over 700 movies in her 41 year career.
Born in Sherman, Texas, Flowers's film debut came in 1923, when she appeared in Hollywood. She made three films that year, and then began working extensively. Many of her appearances are uncredited, as she generally played non-speaking roles.
By the 1930s, Flowers was in constant demand. Her appearances ranged from Alfred Hitchcock and John Ford thrillers to comedic roles alongside of Charley Chase, the Three Stooges, Leon Errol, Edgar Kennedy, and Laurel and Hardy.
She appeared in the following five films which won the Academy Award for Best Picture: It Happened One Night, You Can't Take it with You, All About Eve, The Greatest Show on Earth, and Around the World in Eighty Days. In each of these movies, Flowers was uncredited. Including these five movies, she had appeared in twenty-three Best Picture nominees in total, making her the record holder for most appearances in films nominated for the award. Her last movie was Good Neighbor Sam in 1964.
Flowers's acting career was not confined to feature films. She was also seen in many episodic American TV series, such as I Love Lucy, notably in episodes, "Lucy Is Enceinte" (1952), "Ethel's Birthday" (1955), and "Lucy's Night in Town" (1957), where she is usually seen as a theatre patron.
Outside her acting career, in 1945, Bess Flowers helped to found the Screen Extras Guild (active: 1946-1992, then merged with SAG), where she served as one of its first vice-presidents and recording secretaries.
From Wikipedia
Leonard Mudie (11 April 1883–14 April 1965) was an English character actor whose career lasted for nearly fifty years. After a successful start as a stage actor in England, he appeared regularly in the US, and made his home there from 1932. He appeared in character roles on Broadway and in Hollywood films.
Mudie made his film debut in a Boris Karloff film, The Mummy, in 1932. He moved to Hollywood in that year and lived there for the rest of his life. He played a range of screen parts, some substantial, and others short cameos. Among the bigger roles were Dr. Pearson in The Mummy, Porthinos in Cleopatra (1934), Maitland in Mary of Scotland (1936), and De Bourenne in Anthony Adverse (1936). His small roles, according to The New York Times, were typically "a bewigged, gimlet-eyed British judge".
Mudie made the post-war transition into television, and appeared in several episodes of Adventures of Superman. For the post-war cinema he played the regular character Commander Barnes in the series of Bomba, the Jungle Boy films.
Frank O'Connor was an American screen and television actor, as well as a director, screenwriter, and producer. His lengthy film acting career began in 1915.
