Movie Review: Night Monster (1942)

The movie stars Bela Lugosi, Lionel Atwill, Irene Hervey, Nils Asther and Ralph Morgan.

My oldest daughter and I had one of our father/daughter movie nights this past weekend and, after going through a relatively long list of possibilities, picked this one out because it sounded different. Unfortunately, while the movie had some promise, it just wasn't as good as I hoped it would be.

My biggest problem with this movie is it is very predictable. The film had the potential to be a decent murder mystery, especially since the primary suspect, Kurt Ingston (Morgan), at least from all appearances, is physically unable to carry out the crimes. Unfortunately, the writers decided to spoil that almost immediately by revealing his means for doing so and, as a result of that, the rest of the film wasn't overly difficult to figure out.

It also didn't help that the film, in general, was actually kind of dull. There's a whole lot of talking early on and not a whole lot of action. That, when combined with a not-so-hard-to-figure-out mystery just didn't work for me.

Another thing I found about this movie is I wasn't a fan of the casting. The two biggest names in this film, Lugosi and Atwill, were given relatively minor roles instead of being cast in a way that allowed them to live up to their star billing.

Lugosi, for example, was cast as the butler when he would have easily been a better choice for the mysterious Angor Singh than Asther was (Asther didn't even look or act the part). Atwill wasn't even around for a good chunk of the movie. Films like this are only as good as your top-billed stars are allowed to be.

I think this movie had some potential as a murder mystery. However, because of the writers letting a pretty big cat out of the bag early on, it just never managed to live up to its potential. I was very disappointed as a result.

My Grade: D