That was an excellent one.

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Night Key although starring Boris Karloff in the prime of his horror film stardom is far from that. In this film Karloff plays an inventor who was ruined by the head of a security firm Samuel S. Hinds who stole a security system that could have made Karloff millions. Hinds made the millions and Karloff and his daughter Jean Rogers barely scraped by.Now he goes and does it again even buying off Karloff's lawyer. This time Boris ain't taking it lying down. He's invented an electronic box he calls his Night Key that allows him to bypass and have all kinds of fun with the security system he created for Hinds. His first trick is to let out petty crook Hobart Cavanaugh from the cell Hinds was holding him for the cops. That's a great sequence and thoroughly embarrassing to the man who made millions on Karloff's ideas.Cavanaugh who made a career out of playing drunks attachés himself to Karloff like a puppy and promises to introduce him to some big time crooks. Alan Baxter certainly sees all kinds of possibilities here, but a life of crime isn't what Karloff had in mind.Instead of being a monstrously evil man Boris is a gentle old soul who just wants what is due him. There's also a reason behind what Hinds is doing to ruin Karloff at every opportunity, it's more than capitalistic greed. Karloff is not frightening anyone in this film. Night Key even has a happy ending. Not too many Karloff films have that for him.

On my quest through the Classic Universal Horror Cannon, I've encounter many a film that isn't actually a horror movie, despite macabre advertising. This is one of those film. Curses. It's sort of weird to see Karloff playing a normal middle-age guy one year before in "The Invisible Ray," and then see him as what was the first of many old man parts the next year in this film. "Night Key" is a light-weight crime thriller with heavy comedic vibes and a vaguely sci-fi MacGuffin. Karloff plays the inventor of security systems who has spent fifteen years perfecting a new device, with the goal of selling it to a security company for big bucks, so he and his daughter can be set for life. Instead, the security company decides to sit on the patent. Karloff, teaming with a petty thief, decides to use his master key to cause a series of mischievous break-ins, as revenge. Naturally, things get complicated and a crime boss blackmails Karloff into using his key for real bank robberies."Night Key" rolls along at a decent pace. Karloff is as good as ever, playing a character who comes off as extremely naïve at times. He has good chemistry with Jean Rogers, as his daughter. She gets a love interest in the form of a cop, Warren Hull. The romance isn't well developed but Hull is nice enough. Hobart Cavanaugh as Petty Louie, the thief Boris teams with, provides most of the movie's humor, especially his confusion at his partner's good-nature pranks. Alan Baxter is the serious villain of the film, a monotone-voiced, appropriately threatening crime boss. You won't loose too much during the 67 minutes it takes to watch "Night Key," even if you could maybe use that time better, especially if you're looking for a horror movie.

Despite the casting of Boris Karloff in the lead, "Night Key" isn't a horror flick or chiller even though the studios which produced the film is Universal. "Night Key" is essentially a crime noir with a little science fiction added to the mix to give it flavor. Even the science fiction of the film is minor—Karloff is a poor and victimized genius inventor whose "protection system" was basically swindled by an underhanded businessman, Steven Ranger (Samuel S Hinds), who "stole the patent" through chicanery (however, "legal" in terms of a tricky contract). David Mallory (Karloff) has invented a new protection system, but this time wants 50% of the profits and his name on the invention. When the contract has a flaw that Mallory signs (his lawyer is crooked and allows Ranger to get away with a loophole which doesn't have a time period for installing the new system if he doesn't want to, just using the contract as a weapon against Mallory), the scorned inventor will use a "night key", a device which sets off the alarms of Ranger's protection system. It's the perfect revenge really: Mallory invented the first protection system, knows every nook and cranny, and can exploit its flaws. But when a kingpin, "The Kid" (Alan Baxter, icy cold, in delivery and demeanor), reads of Mallory's activity in the papers, having used his device to break into places (without stealing anything) to prove a point about the flaws in Ranger's protection system, he will use whatever methods to secure the night key so he can rob areas for loot. One of Mallory's problems is a petty thief (and not a very good one at that) he looses from prison with his night key, Petty Louie (Hobart Cavanaugh, used for comedy relief, as well as, a foil for The Kid to use against Mallory and others) and helps him with entering places throughout the city—the two also play around in the stores they enter such as setting up ticking clocks to chime in unison and leaving opened umbrellas. Louie, though, is known by all the criminals in the city, especially The Kid, so Mallory's association with him causes unneeded complications. Jean Rogers is Karloff's daughter, Joan, and Warren Hull is a member of the Ranger protection service, Jim Travers, who takes a shine to her while tailing her, hoping Mallory will turn up. Karloff, wearing makeup and costumed as a much older man, is the perfect sympathetic figure for an audience because he is the victim of corrupt business practices and forced into a nefarious association with The Kid against his will. The screenplay even includes worsening eye sight for Mallory to further add suffering to the character. The Kid takes advantage of this weakness as does Ranger (the contract signing, the fine writing which would perhaps escape the bad eyesight of Mallory) so the film builds up the Mallory character as constantly abused. Mallory is kind, soft-spoken, and principled, so when he is mistreated by the treacherous Ranger, and kidnapped by The Kid, he's a genuine tragic hero you can get behind. Ward Bond, of all people, has an early part as a member of the Kid's gang of hoods. Predictable—even the blossoming romance between Jim and Joan is telegraphed in the usual fashion we are accustomed to seeing in films like "Night Key"—and rather average noirish crime feature benefits from Karloff's presence and lovable character. Hinds, in an atypical change-of-pace role, is crafty and sneaky, that is until his protection system's weaknesses are exploited and he must address the conniving ways he tricked Mallory, perhaps having to make amends for his actions. Karloff, I imagine, probably thought this was a relief from the usual horror roles he normally would (and later) portray.

I remember seeing this film on one of the independant channels in NYC. I don't know if AMC ever ran it. It was nice to see Boris in a role where he isn't the monster or villan.In a memorable scene, after being screwed by his former partners, he and a petty crook go to the alarm companys' clients' stores at night, over-ride the alarm system with radio waves from his "night key" (hence the title?) and cause harmless mischeif, such as opening all the umbrellas in an umbrella store. Eventually REAL criminals learn of his device, and force him to assist them in a major heist. He gets away but is injured (I think). At the central monitoring center he sets ALL the indicators to "alarm", so when the night key is used that location shows as "safe". The cops go there and arrest them. He gets possession of his patent on a new system, which hopefully will screw his old partners to an extent greater than they screwed him.A nice little film.