I Love a Mystery (film)

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I Love a Mystery
I Love a Mystery FilmPoster.jpeg
Directed byHenry Levin
Screenplay byCharles O'Neal
Based onI Love a Mystery
1939-52 radio series
by Carlton E. Morse
Produced byWallace MacDonald
StarringGeorge Macready
Jim Bannon
Nina Foch
CinematographyBurnett Guffey
Edited byAaron Stell
Production
company
Columbia Pictures
Distributed byColumbia Pictures
Release date
  • January 25, 1945 (1945-01-25)
Running time
69 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

I Love a Mystery is a 1945 American mystery film directed by Henry Levin and starring Jim Bannon, Nina Foch, George Macready, and Barton Yarborough.[1] Based on Carlton E. Morse's popular radio serial of the same name, I Love a Mystery was the first of three Columbia "B" pictures inspired by the radio series and the only one actually based on a script written by Morse for the radio series. The Devil's Mask and The Unknown followed in 1946.[2]

Plot[]

Two private detectives, Jim Packard (Jim Bannon) and Doc Long (Barton Yarborough), make the uneasy acquaintance of Jefferson Monk (George Macready) at a nightclub. When a flaming dessert is nearly spilled onto the trio, Monk reveals it was meant for him. He explains that, according to a prophecy, he is to die in three days. Upon learning their profession, Monk hires the two for protection, particularly from a hideous, peg-legged horror who stalks the streets, toting a valise, supposedly to use in transporting Monk's severed head to the ancient secret society of the Barokan. (As it happens, the society has offered to buy Monk's head -- after his death -- because of his striking resemblance to the mummified founder of the Barokan.) When Packard and Doc trail Monk and a woman companion outside the nightclub, the one-legged man appears, but he eludes capture.

Eventually, Packard comes to suspect someone is trying to drive Monk to suicide after he learns Monk's two-million dollar inheritance will go to charity instead of to his wife Ellen should he divorce her (Nina Foch). And since Mrs. Monk has the most to gain from Monk's demise, it is assumed that she is the person behind that conspiracy. In the end, Packard discovers that Monk has begun killing off his wife's conspirators, one by one, including the one-legged stalker. Later. Monk comes to presume that Packard and Long have figured all this out, and he tries to dispatch them as well. However, they manage to foil his scheme. Monk flees in his car, but he becomes involved in a collision, resulting in his own decapitation.

Cast[]

References[]

  1. ^ "I Love a Mystery". BFI. Archived from the original on 2012-07-13.
  2. ^ "Search Results Page". afi.com.

External links[]

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