A string of murders has witnesses giving identical descriptions of a
man seen leaving each scene — Jerome Breen, a wealthy philanthropist
who has been deaf and mute since birth and could not possibly have
been overheard. Lionel Atwill plays Breen in a Monogram
old-dark-house mystery directed by Phil Rosen, with Sheila Terry as
the reporter convinced there is more to the suspect than his
affliction suggests, and Paul Hurst as the detective working the
case. The solution, when it comes, is a genuinely nasty piece of
pre-Code plotting. Made the same year Atwill headlined Mystery of
the Wax Museum, it shows why he was the era's go-to man for quiet
menace. The film is in the public domain.
Mystery · Crime · Thriller