Seven Doors to Death

A murder mystery in which there are shots in the dark and a fleeing woman carjacks a ride. Later the two become suspects in what may be a double murder. There are lots of other suspects and creepy people all intertwined in one way or another.

The seven doors come from seven apartments or businesses that all share the same basement. Murder, missing jewels, and even a mummy case; what does it all mean?

This could easily have been and can be a stage production as all the action takes place in a confined space and the dialog seldom overlaps.

We get to follow the suspected partners in crime as they attempt to track down the real culprit(s) before being charged his/herself. There are lots of opportunities to speculate and kibitz.

The film needs a lot of restoring as it is blurry and dark.

Unfortunately a boring flick, and obviously the only way to see it is the butchered bootleg Public Domain version, which is so blurry and dark that at times you have hard time making out where the screen is. The leading actors are a nuisance. The man spends most of his screen time trying to appear nonchalant, charming and sexy, forgetting totally what the film is about and that he is a murder suspect because of some dame who played him for a goose to start with. The dame herself merely walks through the flick, being dignified if she's not busy appearing cute. It's a rather badly written stuff, never interesting or witty. No good camera work, no memorable soundtrack, no glamorous actresses or atmospheric sets. It only scratches the surface of the genre, and nothing happens if you miss this totally missable flick.

Only in the cinema could the romantic relationship of a model and a cabbie ever could happen. They don't usually happen even in film unless the cabbie is an exiled prince or something like that. But in Seven Doors To Death cabbie Chick Chandler hooks up with model June Clyde to solve a big mystery with several deaths involving jewels and the ownership of an apartment complex.

Chandler's dragged in unwillingly at the point of a gun by Clyde who commandeers him and his cab. She's fleeing a murder scene and Chandler's cab is totaled. After that Chandler declares himself a detective and of course solves the mystery.

The courtyard apartment complex looked something like the one in Rear Window where Jimmy Stewart watched the parade of life. Of course Rear Window is a far better film.

The cheap and tacky sets and inferior sound mark this PRC release. But most of all I couldn't accept the premise or Chandler as a romantic lead.

... And less! This starts out kind of nicely. A woman screams in the dark. (The whole thing was dark in the print I saw. It was not only hard to see but also hard to hear.) People then rush about. A couple suspects are immediately established. But it's downhill from there. We have mad scientists. We have mummies. We have everything but a coherent plot.

On the other hand, the major players are good. Chick Chandler is pretty decent as the male lead. (I can't call him a noir protagonist: Though this is a PRC movie clearly done very cheaply, it is not film noir.) June Cylde is good, too. And the other female lead is also. And hat a name the actress went by: Rebel Randall!

"Seven Doors to Death:" sounds intriguing, doesn't it? Quite a catchy title! Very exciting start to this film: a shot rings out, a woman screams & comes running out of a house in a courtyard. She jumps onto the running board of a slow moving car & orders the driver to turn down a dead end street by holding a small flashlight to the side of his head as if it were a gun. The driver speeds down the dead end & crashes; when he recovers, the lady is gone. Sounds great doesn't it? It is great, but this exciting scene lasts for all of about two minutes. After that, it's mostly downhill. The plot becomes muddled as the seven suspects all take turns doing suspicious things, & three or four more murders take place. Chick Chandler is adequate as the male lead, but he's got too many corny lines with too much emphasis on comedy. June Clyde is good as the lady who jumps on the running board. Most of the others are fairly good as well, especially Rebel Randall as a woman who can't seem to get enough attention from the men. The real problem with this film is not in the acting, it's in the script. An interesting premise is talked to death with routine dialog. I rate it 5/10.