- Director: Lew Landers
- Writers: Hal Fimberg, Robert B. Hunt
- Stars: Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, Maxie Rosenbloom
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 6 Minutes
- Link: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x15r5in
Synopsis
The credits roll with madcap wacky music, so you know right off the bat this is going to be a comedy. The sign in front of the historic tavern says it is for sale, “very cheap.” Karloff comes in, wanting an apple for Mr. Johnson, but all they have is a rotten banana. “Will that do?”
Amelia the maid and Professor Billings (Karloff) let a woman, Winnie Slade, in to look at the inn. “It’s exactly what I’ve been looking for,” she says as she falls through the rotten floor. She decides to buy the place, but the professor wants to leave his lab in the basement. What could go wrong?
Billings has a rug salesman downstairs in his machine, and when he turns on his electric-spark machines, the salesman is killed. Billings doesn’t seem particularly upset. It seems that this may be a regular occurrence.
Dr. Lorencz (Lorre) comes for a visit. He holds the mortgage on the inn. He’s a scientist who has invented a hair restoration formula that doesn’t work. They sign over the deed, and she hands over a big pile of cash that apparently, she just brought with her. They finish the deal just as Bill, her ex-husband, walks in and tells her to stop; it’s too late.
Mr. Brampton walks in, and he wants a room. They lead him up to a room, and it’s a torn-up disaster, but he agrees to pay $5 a day (an extremely high rate for that age).
At dinner that night, there’s a scream, and everyone says it’s a ghost. Winnie is thrilled that she’s bought a haunted house, and Bill goes to investigate. He finds the dead salmon in the basement. They run to Lorencz, who is also the judge, justice of the peace, mayor, coroner, and the sheriff; he’s everything in this town. He puts on his badge, puts a gun in one pocket and a kitten in the other.
Lorencz calls out to Billings and goes down into the lab. Billings says he didn’t kill the man laying at his feet. He admits he shouldn’t have let him lying around, and with Lorencz’s help, he can store them with the other four. He’s killed five men in his experiments. Billings thinks he is on the track to creating Superman, and if he hadn’t had something in his pocket, it would have worked. Lorencz is convinced, and he wants to help with this great scientific discovery.
Lorencz helps him hide the body in a secret room. All the dead men are door-to-door peddlers, and they never have any friends. They’re probably all happier being dead than they were alive anyway.
Then we’re back to the others. Bill has trouble with a bed that collapses, and Amanda roams the halls thinking she’s a chicken. Lorencz suggests using Bill for the next test. They can just bang him on the head, and they don’t even need to use anesthetic. A powder-puff salesman comes to the door, and the two men carry him down to the lab. They remember to search him this time. They keep coming across Mr. Brampton, who seems to be searching for something.
Billings and Lorencz find another guest murdered. Bill and Winnie come to the conclusion that it’s all scam to get them to sell the inn back at a huge loss. The salesman knocks out everyone with chloroform that doesn’t work on him. He thinks he’s a mass murderer when they all fall down.
Billings and Lorencz wake up and stash Bill and Winnie in the room with the corpses as a man breaks into the lab. He’s Silvio, an escaped prisoner that has a huge bomb in his bag. The couple in the morgue wake up. “It’s fun in a way, being entombed!” Winnie shouts.
Billings and Lorencz knock out the powder-puff salesman and finally get him in the machine while Silvio watches. They turn on the machine, hoping a Superman will come out and deal with Silvio.
Brampton explains that Benedict Arnold once hid in their secret tunnels; this inn is priceless and historical. The police arrive and arrest Amelia and Ebenezer, the servants for murders. The entire cast sneaks downstairs as the experiment concludes. They open up the machine, and this salesman is dead too. The bomber announces his plans just as the dead rise and some into the room. None of the corpses is actually dead, and the bomb is a dud. It turns out Billings has invented a way of putting people into suspended animation.
The police take everyone to the asylum.
Commentary
This is one-hundred-percent a sendup of other horror films here, with not a serious line in the bunch. There’s lots of running around and physical, slapstick comedy here. It’s got funny lines and jokes and silly situations, but none of it is at all realistic or logical. It’s like watching a live-action cartoon.
Peter Lorre and Boris Karloff went on to do a total of four comedy films together. They were excellent here, naturals who were not really known for their comic bits. Actually, they are the best part of the film, being evil, confused, and bewildered all simultaneously.
Don’t watch it for horror, but it is pretty funny, and there are some surprises.