Cheap Black Raven (B&W) (DVD) (Sam Newfield) Price

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Customer Reviews of Black Raven (B&W)

ALPHA DVD VERSION
BLACK RAVEN IS A TEXTBOOK EXAMPLE OF A POVERTY ROW OLD DARK HOUSE MURDER MYSTERY. STORMY NIGHT, WASHED-OUT BRIDGE, WEIRD ASSORTMENT OF ODDBALL CHARACTERS WITH SHADY PASTS, SPOOKY WAYSIDE INN, SECRETS TO HIDE, AND THEN THE MURDERS BEGIN...EVERYONE IS A POTENTIAL SUSPECT OR VICTIM. <
>GEORGE ZUCCO IS A MASTER AT THIS KIND OF STUFF & IS GREAT TO WATCH AS ALWAYS, SECOND ONLY TO LUGOSI FOR SHEER ENTERTAINMENT VALUE IN THE LAND OF PRC/MONOGRAM. A MUST HAVE FOR FANS OF THE GENRE!!!! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. <
>HOWEVER,.... <
>THE ALPHA DVD VERSION COMES FROM NOT THE GREATEST SOURCE MATERIAL. THE PRINT IS RATHER DARK MAKING IT HARD TO SEE WHAT EXACTLY IS GOING ON IN SOME SCENES & THAT'S WHY I KNOCK OFF A STAR IN THE OVERALL RATING OF WHAT I CONSIDER TO BE A MUST FOR ZUCCO FANS. <
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It was a very dark and stormy night
I'm a fan of George Zucco, but I found this movie exceedingly tedious. For one thing, I couldn't see what was going on half of the time; a significant part of the action takes place either in darkened rooms or outside in the pitch black rainy night. This also contributes to a problem I had of keeping a couple of characters straight, especially the criminal types who spend most of their time hiding or stomping around huddled in rain gear. There was also very little character development-we just get one-shot glances at some of the individuals, and this lack of depth gave me little with which to distinguish some of them in my mind. One guy's a criminal who has broken out of jail in order to get revenge on Zucco's character "the Raven," (whose shadiness of character is never quite clear, particularly in terms of the past and the present). Another guy is apparently on the run after having been sold out by his own crooked boss. Then you have the stereotypical little guy who is sick of being treated like the cowardly runt he is and has embezzled fifty thousand dollars. The only half way normal people we meet are a man and woman whose plan of eloping to Canada has been delayed by the storm outside. Her father, some kind of criminally inclined businessman himself, tracks his daughter to the Raven's hotel, thus setting the stage for the night's drama. He is murdered, the embezzled money disappears, and the incompetent sheriff doesn't have the time or desire to actually investigate a crime, especially since it's so much easier to just pick somebody out and pin everything on him. The plethora of killings that follow each of his arrests greatly annoys him. The second half of the film basically consists of different people, often unidentifiable to me because of the darkness on screen, running around the house hiding from, ridiculing, and basically annoying each other. Perhaps if I had been able to actually see what was going on, I would have enjoyed this movie. Even George Zucco didn't seem to have his heart in this film. His cinematic get-togethers of either invited or unplanned guests are usually interesting, but this is an exception.

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Dark Stormy Night
George Zucco plays Bradford the owner of a country inn and Glen Strange playing as a bumbling oaf. On a stormy night "The Black Raven" is visited by a convict with a grudge against Bradford, a bank teller who has stolen $50k, and a couple that are eloping.

The atmosphere is excellent i.e., an old dark house on a stormy night!

Glen Strange is the one that played Frankenstein the last three "Frankenstein" movies House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula, Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, and of course he played Sam on Gunsmoke.