Perfect cast and a good story

Best movie ever!

Blistering performances.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

The Rogues' Tavern (1936) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Another film in the long line of "old dark house" or "murder-mysteries" as Jimmy (Wallace Ford) and his fiancé Marjorie (Barbara Pepper) show up at an old hotel to get married but there's no Justice of the Peace. Instead they find a dead body and a bunch of suspects and soon the threat of more deaths is hanging over everyone so Jimmy must try to solve the case.THE ROGUES' TAVERN isn't the greatest movie ever made but it's certainly interesting enough to keep you entertained throughout its 69 minute running time. If you're familiar with these types of films then you already know that it seems there were at least a hundred of them released throughout the 1930s. Everything from killer gorillas to killer madmen to wack job women were suspects and each one always featured various objects that kept them all familiar. It could be trapped doors, the whole thunder spells and usually there was a man and woman team solving them.This film at least has a pretty good cast including Ford. He worked in a various of film genres but he makes for a good lead her as he's quite charming and manages to hold your attention. Pepper, Joan Woodbury and Clara Kimball Young are also good in their roles. The direction here isn't anything overly special but at the film moves at a nice pace and there aren't any major issues. The ending is quite nice, although I must admit that the shot of the possible victims faces before and after the killer is identified was quite funny.

***SPOILERS*** Going to the "Red Rock Tavern" to get married private detective Jimmy Kelly, Wallace Ford, and his fiancée Marjorie Burns, Barbara Pepper, get involved with a number of murders that occur there. The killer seems to be a half bred, wolf/dog, German Shepard who ends up ripping his victims throat's out. It's later that Jimmy found out that someone was killing a number of the guests at the "Haunted Tavern" and using a fake dog head or mask in doing his ghastly work!We start to get the picture that all these murders are being done in revenge for something the victims did a number of years ago. That's in their work as illegal diamond smugglers and the reason they all got telegrams from their killer to meet at the tavern in order for him or her to murder them! As for the other people who happen to be there, like Jimmy & Marjorie, their just collateral damage as far as the killer is concerned.By the time the killer is revealed all the people in the tavern are locked in the basement with the by now identified killer about to pull the string or switch that would blow or gas them, in the makeshift gas chamber that he constructed, to death. It's then when in explaining why he was doing all this he goes completely mad in feeling he's about to achieve his objective, killing everyone there, and drops his guard. That's when Jimmy Kelly finding a way out of the death or gas chamber gets to him, as well as the police, to put an end to his madness.What really stands out in the movie is the mysterious killer's reasons for murdering his victims and even more astounding the way he acted when finally revealing himself. As mad as a hatter and crazy as a junkie high on LSD his actions were far more comical then murderous. It's like this was his big chance, as a actor, to strut his stuff and be convincing but instead have him falling flat on his face and looking ridicules in doing it!

Robert F. Hill directs this poor man's Thin Man flick. A humorous little mystery that leaves a little more to be desired. Jimmy Flavin(Wallace Ford),a small-time detective, and his fiancé Marjorie(Barbara Pepper)arrive at a hostelry searching for a Justice of the Peace. The inn run by wheelchair-bound John Elliot is home to a jewelry ring and also the site of homicides. Visitors are found one by one with crushed throats and bite marks. Flavin decides to investigate the murders himself while waiting to recite nuptials. Well placed humor dots the criminal content. The cast of players include: Joan Woodbury, Arthur Loft, Clara Kimball Young and Jack Mulhall.

A hard to find movie that was originally distributed by Puritan Pictures. This is a borderline Old Dark House movie. It takes place at the Red Rock Tavern, which is an old dark hotel; there's a thunderstorm & three murders, & the lights do go out, but no secret passageways. Nice humorous touches, especially in the interchanges between Wallace Ford's character & his fiancee, played by Barbara Pepper (who has her Mae West expressions down pat). Joan Woodbury plays a strange character with many premonitions; the director seems fascinated by Joan, & the camera often isolates her in unusual closeups that lose sight of the rest of the cast & the backdrops. A watchable film, especially for Old Dark House fans, but not a great one by any means. I rate it 4/10.