Great Film overall

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Kay Kyser, orchestra leader and radio star (and eternal college fraternity jokester), was sort of the precursor to Spike Jones; a born ham, he was a show-off goof for his guests, backed up willingly by his merry troupe of musicians. In this theatrical advertisement for his brand of comedy and music, Kyser is hired to play a birthday party in a gloomy mansion, the kind where poison darts imported from Africa are framed and hung on the wall. The shindig guest-list includes a creepy judge, a scary professor, an ominous swami, lots of giggly females and enough bad jokes to fill three Bob Hope pictures. The songs (by Jimmy McHugh and Johnny Mercer!) are nothing to brag out, and neither is over-confident Kyser, yukking it up as usual with elbow-nudging material that turns 1940 back 10 good years. * from ****

The open to You'll Find Out is the worst part. It begins with Kay Kyser and band doing their radio show. The lame jokes, over-the-top actions of the band, irritating song, and Kyser giving new meaning to the word obnoxious make it hard to sit through. After watching this opening eight or so minutes I imagined I was in for a great deal of pain for the next hour and a half.However, after the unbearable start, it becomes a fun little "old dark house" movie. Don't get me wrong, Kyser and company still try to be funny throughout...and they're not...but it isn't quite as in-your-face as that opening scene. Ish Kabibble is especially lame. Often he reminds me of the snickering dog Muttley on the old Wacky Races cartoon. As a matter of fact, cartoonish is the perfect word to describe the humor in this film .The movie's selling point is not the corny humor, however. It's the horror trio of Karloff, Lugosi, and Lorre in their only outing together. They don't get a lot to do but the movie of course belongs to them anytime they're on screen. Also highly enjoyable was the usage of the cool and creepy Sonovox. Those scenes are some of the movie's highlights.It seems strange to recommend a comedy that isn't funny. But there's enough going on with the mystery and the stranded guests to keep you entertained. It's a fun movie with a good cast. Just prepare to grit your teeth to get through the opening mess.

Most people who enjoy this movie would have had to be children when it came out.It probably hit the neighborhood theatres in the summer of 1941, although being made the year before.Of course,all h**l was about to break loose in the world.This movie was a perfect "Friday night event" for the young kids who would attend in droves, usually chaparoned by a couple of teen-aged girls.Life was simpler then, and parents frequently let their young kids walk to the neighborhood shows in this fashion. Karloff,Lugosi, and Lorre were the popular bogeymen,and most of us knew they were kindly actors beneath the disguises.I recall receiving fan mail and pictures from all three (probably valuable today but long lost).Interestingly,Kay Kaiser was well known then(from radio)and had a reasonably talented band.I've seen it occasionally over the years,and the naustalgic element always resurfaces.Unfortunately,generations born in she fifties and later might consider it dated and silly.How sad!

YOU'LL FIND OUT is strictly a product of the '40s, when a mixture of comedy and horror was standard fare for a Saturday afternoon at the movies. Usually this sort of dark house comedy was left to Abbott and Costello but this time it's band leader Kay Kyser, who was a sort of Spike Jones of his day.It's a gimmicky sort of dark house mystery where most of the action takes place in a "haunted" mansion full of secret panels and passageways, all scary enough to provide the setting for a story about a trio of gangsters (BELA LUGOSI, PETER LORRE and BORIS KARLOFF) scheming to murder a young woman (Helen Parrish) for her father's inheritance, by holding a seance at which her father will appear and frighten her to death--or so they hope.The comedy provided by Kyser and his band (especially Ish Kabibble) is extremely corny and some of the one-liners are creaky enough to turn off the chills, but it's all done in such an innocently good-natured way that it comes off as harmless fun, if only mildly entertaining.David Butler (who co-wrote, produced and directed) obviously had a good time putting this one together. The grand old mansion is a fabulous setting for the scary scenes, there's plenty of thunder and lightning to keep the atmosphere loaded, and all of the performers do their best to keep things spinning along.Handsome DENNIS O'KEEFE shows a good flair for comedy, even if his material is on the weak side, and GINNY SIMMS proves that she was a pleasing enough pop singer with a really good voice and personality.But it's a hit-and-miss sort of film, funny in spots, scary in others, but as cliché-ridden as the old dark house comedies come. Oddly enough, despite the presence of Karloff, Lorre and Lugosi, the creepiest performance in the film is given by ALMA KRUGER as an old gal who likes to communicate with the dead, all the while viewing everyone with an icy stare.