One Frightened Night
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Christy Cabanne
Mary Carlisle
Arthur Hohl
Wally Ford
Lucien Littlefield
Regis Toomey
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
A storm rages and the lights go out during a dinner at a mansion sponsored for friends and relatives of the irascible, seventy-year-old Jasper Whyte. To avoid the new inheritance tax, Jasper tells them he will give away his money, $1,000,000 each, to high-spirited Uncle Tom Dean Whyte, Laura Proctor and her husband Arthur, Jasper's eerie servant Elvira, his physician, Dr. Denham, and his lawyer, Felix. However, Felix arrives with Doris Waverly, who is carrying the papers to prove she is Jasper's long-lost granddaughter. Jasper changes his mind and, instead of dividing up the estate, decides to leave it all to Doris. Jasper's tempetuous daughter had run off years earlier with Henry Waverly, an actor, and although the marriage was a failure, she never communicated with her father again. A second woman wanders in from the storm claiming that she is Doris and becomes angry when Jasper is skeptical. After the second Doris admits she is an actress and the partner of magician "the Great Luvalle," Felix telephones the sheriff. The first Doris is then found dead upstairs. Jasper suspects his guests of the murder and throws suspicion from one to another in the hope of discovering the guilty party. Jasper believes that the dead girl was actually the imposter, since the second Doris has her mother's temper. Jasper tells the sheriff that the first Doris was strangled and poison was poured down her throat to make it look like a suicide, but he knows the cup was planted in her right hand because she was left-handed. Tom guesses that the real Doris is in danger and she is nearly killed with a dart from an Amazon blow gun. As Doris spies on Tom in her room, Abner, the sheriff's deputy, pursues a figure with a hideously disfigured face. Jasper takes Doris into his daughter's room, which has been locked for many years, and discovers that her papers have been broken into. Tom locks up Abner and, while Doris is in Jasper's trophy room, two men sneak in and fight. Only Arthur is present when the lights go on, and although Tom has discovered Arthur is deeply in debt, Arthur denies having committed the murder. With the lights out, Tom handcuffs Luvalle and seizes Doris, thereby saving her from Dr. Denham, who is the killer. The first Doris was his accomplice, and with the arrival of the real Doris, he feared she would expose him. Jasper agrees to cover Arthur's debt for Laura, and the sheriff leaves Luvalle tied up so that Tom and Doris can be together.
Director
Christy Cabanne
Cast
Mary Carlisle
Arthur Hohl
Wally Ford
Lucien Littlefield
Regis Toomey
Hedda Hopper
Clarence Wilson
Evalyn Knapp
Rafaela Ottiano
Fred Kelsey
Adrian Morris
Crew
Bob Beche
Eddie Boyle
Iris Burns
James Caligan
Ray Curtiss
Billy Gilbert
Luke Johnson
Terry Kellum
Nat Levine
Joseph Lewis
Ted Mapes
Dixie Mccoy
Ernest Miller
William Nobles
Stuart Palmer
William Perry
Monty Steadman
Wellyn Totman
T. T. Triplett
Denis Watney
George Yohalem
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
Modern sources add the following information: The musical score directed by Arthur Kay includes compositions by Charles Dunworth, Jean de la Roche, Josiah Zuro, Francis Gromon, Milan Roder, Rex Bassett, Rudolph Friml, Oscar Potoker and Constantin Bakaleinikoff. A Dunworth-de la Roche theme that opened The Vampire Bat (see below) serves as musical background to the credits. Sound was recorded by International Sound Recording Company, the fiendish mask was designed by Markoff and special effects were by John T. Coyle and Howard Lydecker.
