HOUSE OF SECRETS

US, 1937, 70 minutes, Black and white.
Leslie Fenton, Muriel Evans,Noel Madison, Sydney Blackmer, Morgan Wallace, Holmes Herbert.
Directed by Roland D. Reed.

House of Secrets is a small budget thriller from the mid-1930s, American but taking advantage of English settings, city of London, estates on the outskirts of London, Scotland Yard, Parliament…

The central characters are, in fact, American. Leslie Fenton is a man about town who flirts with Muriel Evans on the ship to England, discovers that he has inherited a vast estate, visits the property and is ordered off, rousing his curiosity, especially when he is advised by his solicitor to sell. He continues to investigate, boards in a hotel near the property, and is fascinated by the woman who is on the ship and whose father is now in command on the property.

He also meets his detective friend, Sydney Blackmer, from Chicago who is investigating a murder.

It is a mystery as to what is going on at the house, the quiet punctuated several times by a rather hysterical cackle. The American keeps investigating, enlisting his friend from Chicago who eventually discusses the matter with the politicians and Scotland Yard discovering the truth. There is also a parchment torn in half with information about pirate treasure in the property.

An American group has half the parchment and is planning to recover the pirate treasure – lead by the murderer that the Chicago detective is looking for.

The reason for the secrecy in the house is top-secret. A scientist is guilty of killing a colleague and about to be executed – but has secretly been taken from prison to the property so that he can develop his anti-poison gas discovery, gradually recovering his sanity and working on the solution, his contribution to the British public despite his crime.

All sorted out in the end, American gangsters arrested, a romance in the offing – and even the discovery of the treasure!