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.

"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.

... 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!

After a woman (Clyde) flees from an apartment following a series of shots, she car-jacks a passing motorist (Chandler) in order to escape and the two eventually become embroiled in a murder mystery (and a budding romance) they must solve to avoid suspicion.

Throughout their enquiries a number of potential leads emerge, Gaye plays a quirky crime-scene photographer who collects ghoulish photographs of real-life murderers and serial killers, while Casey MacGregor looks a likely suspect as the brawny, silent gardener infatuated by Rebel Randall's vivacious vixen, a high society gal with champagne tastes on a beer budget (and who bears a striking resemblance to Paulette Goddard or Hedy Lamarr).

Predictably, the sleuths manage to out-pace the clueless detective (Raffetto), closing the case in record time (61 minutes, in fact, Chandler solves the mystery in 50 minutes), and not a moment too soon as far as I was concerned. Lightweight and lacking suspense, it's not a howler, just an average B-picture mystery displaying little originality or excitement.

These old whodunit movies depend on good chemistry among the characters. The leads in this one seem a bit lacking. The plot is fun and keeps us guessing. There doesn't seem to be much threat overhanging the cast, so it doesn't exactly keep us on the edges of our seats. The movie begins nicely with a young woman using a flashlight (pretending it's a gun) to hijack a ride with a young man. He crashes the car and she disappears. After hunting her down, they become allied in a murder case. They are possible suspects much of the time, but it never seems to be serious. This makes what they do rather bland and uninteresting. The girl is a little too one dimensional and the male lead quite dull. There is a courtyard that looks a little like a contemporary shopping mall. There are seven shops and everyone is a suspect. The title makes me think of foreign intrigue. It's not that, though some of the peripheral characters are interesting. Unfortunately, it's relatively forgettable when all is said and done.