Mill Creek Entertainment goes to the vaults on May
19 for the double-disc, six-film Blu-ray collection titled Inner
Sanctum Mysteries: The Complete Film Series.
Throughout the 1930s there were the pulp fiction
mystery novels from the publishing company of Simon and Shuster. So popular was the series that NBC launched
a weekly radio program in 1941, which migrated over to CBS once World War II
began and stayed there until 1950 … and then continued on at ABC radio stations
for two more years.
A couple of years later, 39 episodes were produced
for a full season of Inner Sanctum on
NBC television during the 1954 broadcast season.
Universal Pictures took notice of the publishing and
radio success and approached Simon and Schuster about a film series based on
the concept of the Inner Sanctum
series. The result were six films being
produced by the studio between 1943 and 1945, all starring “The Wolf Man”
himself, Lon Chaney, Jr. in various roles.
Mill Creek Entertainment has all six of the films in
the series ready for mystery and horror fans to enjoy for the first time on
Blu-ray on May 19.
The series launched at Christmas in 1943 with
director Reginald LeBorg’s Calling Dr. Death,
with Chaney as a psychiatrist who has lost his memory. But to make matters worse, his two-timing
wife, Maria (Ramsay Ames — Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, The
Mummy's Ghost, Philo Vance Returns,
etc.) has been brutally murdered.
Did he do it?
Or was it his wife’s lover, Robert (David Bruce — Flying
Tigers, The Mad Ghoul)? Or, perhaps it was Robert’s wife (played by
Fay Helm — Captive Wild Woman, Son of Lassie)? To find out, Chaney has his beautiful assistant,
Stella (Patricia Morison — The Fallen Sparrow, The Song of
Bernadette, Dressed to Kill), hypnotize him to get
at the truth.
No cheating … you have to watch Calling
Dr. Death on Blu-ray from Mill Creek
Entertainment on May 19 to find out the identity of the killer!!
That is just the first entry in the series. There are five more “pulp” thrillers. These are: Weird
Woman, released in March of 1944, Chaney falls in
love with a mysterious “island orphan” played by Anne Gwynne (House of
Frankenstein, Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome),
but a jealous woman (Evelyn Ankers — Captive
Wild Woman, The Frozen Ghost) does her best to
destroy their marriage (best not to mess the supernatural); Dead
Man’s Eyes had its theatrical launch in
November of 1944 and features Chaney as an artist who is blinded, there is a
chance to see again, there’s a murder, another murder and Chaney is the chief
suspect; The Frozen Ghost
(Chaney as a famed mentalist … Evelyn Ankers returns), Strange
Confession (a head in a suitcase has a tale
of greed to tell) and Pillow of Death (Chaney
cheats on his wife, when she is found dead he becomes the main suspect) all
followed in 1945 and that concluded Universal’s deal with Simon and Shuster.
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