The Phantom in the House (1929)
** (out of 4)
Peggy (Grace Valentine) accidentally kills her lover just as her husband Boyd (Henry B. Walthall) walks in. Boyd agrees to say he did the crime and spends the next fifteen-years in prison. When he's released he meets back up with the wife but both agreed not to tell their now adult daughter Dorothy (Nancy Welford) that he's really daddy. Soon she wanting to marry Paul (Ricardo Cortez) but he's accused of a murder he didn't really commit. This leads Boyd with a decision to make.
If you watch enough of these early sound pictures then you'll notice a few things. For starters, there's usually some sort of musical number for no reason. Second, there's usually a lot of boring dialogue that means absolutely nothing to the story. The third thing you'll notice is that there's usually enough plot for ten different movies. All of this can be understood because sound was something new and people wanted to hear it.
With that said, those three things usually make these early talkies rather difficult to watch today and there's no question that this here is one of the silliest I've ever seen. The entire plot is just downright crazy and stupid. What makes matters even worse is that the love affair, the murder, the lie and the prison term is all handled in the first seven minutes of the movie. From here we get on to the new stuff with the daughter getting involved with a man her mother doesn't approve of. This here leads to another murder and we're off on a whole new storyline.
The best thing about this picture is Walthall who really was a very good actor. He was perfectly capable of handling silent pictures and he made the transition to sound very well. He's very low-key here but he's certainly easy to follow and you can't help but enjoy the performance and the character Cortez gets the top-billing but the picture certainly belongs to Walthall as he's the actual lead. The supporting performances are mixed to say the least with Valentine coming off the worst with her overacting.
THE PHANTOM IN THE HOUSE is a pretty routine drama and for the most part it's very boring. The over-the-top nature of the story and the fact that it was an early sound picture help keep it mildly interesting but for the most part it's a dud.
