i must have seen a different film!!

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

If there was ever an award for "worst ensemble", this film would have won that prize for 1932. Everybody speaks as if they are reciting a dictionary filled with words they can't pronounce, as if the director was timing each of their lines to reach a certain point When the fastest speaker is "Sleep n' Eat" (aka Willie Best), you know that the film is moving along slower than a snail in a swamp. Had everybody spoken their lines at a normal speed, the film would have been 20 minutes shorter than its hour long running time.This "old dark house" movie utilizes elements already old hat in talkie horror films (an invalid patriarch, a heroine in peril, sinister servants, even a gorilla living in the basement), and you just know that a hair-covered hand is going to pop out of a wall to grab the heroine as she sleeps. A violin playing shadow will instantly make you think of Cloris Leachman in Frau Brucher in "Young Frankenstein".Mischa Auer can't make up his mind whether his character is a slow-witted servant or sinister red herring. He takes the wacko that Dwight Frye played in "Dracula" to a new level of ridiculousness. Vera Reynolds' heroine is so dull and the dialog so non-campy and the identity of the perpetrator so obvious that you will figure it all out within the first 10 minutes of the film.

Sorry for my bad English :(This movie wants to be some many things at the time, and fails in every aspect, tries to be as Dracula or Frankenstein, tries to be a detective movie, a Gothic tale, a suspenseful movie ad scary, but none of this ones works, first the plot is ridiculous, a group of people stay in a old dark house to read the will of a relative and then strange things began to happen they all think is the ape of the dead relative, in the end the ape is controlled by three of the people to kill the others and stay with the money, which is ridiculous, so the story doesn't work and is rejected by major studios, but they still want to make the movie, so they make it independent, plus the develop of the script also has some plot holes and things that just don't make sense like the part the fiancée of the leading girl starts asking questions like a detective to a guy just because he found his cigarette, or the leading girl that screams the whole movie to take her out of the house, but they don't even try to get out, after all what just happened, or again the leading girl, screaming because she found a corpse in her bed, and just minutes later she sleeps in the same place the body was found, come on all this is ridiculous and i am not telling everything.From that we get the second point, the low-budget, you can see the movie is obviously cheap, because of the special effects, the setting and the actors, the killer hand of the monkey doesn't even look like the real monkey, it makes no sense, the setting tries to be Gothic and creepy but it is not, and the acting is laughable, the leading girl is always hysterical and in tow seconds she is smiling or laughing, Hans tries to be creepy, but it ends being laughable, and its a little bit racist, the only black character in the movie is the one with no intelligence. In the end its a bad low-budget movie that tries to be like Dracula or Frankenstain, this movie is just too simple, if you want to see a real Gothic old dark house movie go watch The Old Dark House, the 1932 version, directed by James Whale.5.1/10

This is a popular title among the "old dark house" thrillers (often given a comic slant) which flooded the market from the 1920s through to the mid-1940s or thereabouts, but I was sorely disappointed by it. For one thing, characterization is inadequate (even when considering the thing is just 60 minutes long) so that what plot development there is feels largely mechanical – and, regrettably, even the treatment proves too stolid to render this an entertaining film (with little genuine atmosphere to help matters). For the record, the same director's follow-up – THE VAMPIRE BAT (1933) – has an intriguing cast and uses leftover sets from James Whale's sublime spoof THE OLD DARK HOUSE (1932) but is not otherwise that more of a success in putting across the various genre conventions! Anyway, the would-be thrills here involve a couple of attempts on the heroine's life (typically, the sole heir of a vast fortune) made, we are led to believe, by a caged ape kept – for no very good reason – in the basement (except that the assailant's hairy arms are visibly longer than those of the rather squat mammal concerned!). As for the comedy, despite the presence of Mischa Auer (who actually plays it straight, Leonard Maltin's comments notwithstanding) and Willie Best (unflatteringly billed as "Sleep 'N' Eat"), it is quite sparse – and so mild as to barely raise a smile! Also involved is Sheldon Lewis (as the heroine's invalid and indignant uncle) who had played the dual role in the 1920 version of "Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde" that fell far short of the rival production designed as a vehicle/showcase for the great John Barrymore.

Slow moving old dark house chiller consisting of several familiar traits associated with these kind of films. The heiress set to receive a fortune after returning home to her father's mansion for a will reading with her fiancé. Secret rooms and passageways. Suspicious characters that'd have a reason to harm her, such as the maid, her manservant son, and the invalid uncle all desiring a larger portion of the inheritance that is unavailable as long as she remains alive to collect. You have the thunderstorm and lighting outside. The killer constantly threatening to kill her, often failing to do so due to unforeseen circumstances. And, an amateur sleuth, attempting to solve the mystery as to who would wish for his beloved girl's demise.The film adds a primate caged in a basement, a pet of the deceased who was a follower of the Darwinian theory. The woman in peril is Ruth Earlton(Vera Reynolds), and her fiancé is Dr. Ted Clayton(Rex Lease). Ruth's uncle is Robert(Sheldon Lewis), with crippled legs, always needing assistance and all around pitiable sight. Emma Krug(Martha Mattox)and her glum son, Hanns(Mischa Auer)are the hired help, really unhappy about how unappreciated they were by their former employer. A furry arm extends from behind a curtain over Ruth's bed attempting to strangle her, inevitably killing someone else on accident who was lying in her spot. Hanns has a secret as to why he's particularly angry, besides his mother's meager salary left to her in the will(..Hanns didn't receive anything just fueling his malice even further)..concerning Robert, who himself would get everything if Ruth were out of the picture. Clayton, along with Mr. Wilkes(Sidney Bracey), executor of the will, attempt to uncover whose behind the sneaky shenanigans involving his future wife.There's really nothing attractive about this fossil, as the cast(..or their characters for that matter) aren't that interesting(..a rather dull, colorless, stiff bunch)or is the mystery at the heart of the plot. The film pretty much goes out of it's way to tell us who the perpetrator is, and the whole scenario around the primate is rather embarrassing/laughable. African-Americans, I'm sure, will cringe at the treatment of Willie Best's chauffeur, the black man constantly ordered around like a mutt by his white superiors, who bark at him as he expresses his displeasure for being stuck at the mansion around a potentially dangerous ape. Best's character is slow, constantly befuddled, frightened, uneducated and subservient..it's a disturbing stereotype that would typecast black actors/actresses for decades to come. To top it all off, his character is told of how some believe we came from apes and he mentions how his grandfather favored one! The title is rather lame as well. This one isn't exactly worth pursuing, but of mild interest to fans of low budget B-movies, who enjoy films featuring a damsel in distress, a fortune coveted, and a series of events that lead to the unmasking of a concocted plan that falls apart. There have been better films featuring a similar kind of plot and characters(..without the caged ape, of course), and I'd say search elsewhere for better examples of the genre.