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On a ferry across the Canal to Britain, Barry (Leslie Fenton) meets
Julie (Muriel Evans), and it is lov at first sight ... but nevertheless
she chooses to make a disappearance act and is nowhere to be found,
nowhere at all - which causes Barry to extend his stay in London, just to
find her again. Rather surprisinsly, he soon learns from lawyer Coventry
(Jameson Thomas) that he has inherited a considerable amount of money and
a vast estate near London ... but when he wants to put up shop in his
estate, he's chased away at gunpoint by a certain Doctor Kenmore (Morgan
Wallace), who claims the estate is his.
It soon becomes clear to Barry that Kenmore is some sort of crook, but
for some reason nobody, not the police, not his lawyer, not the
commissioner of Scotland Yard (Ian Maclaren), not the home secretary
(Holmes Herbert), not even his FBI friend Starr (Sydney Blackmer) will
help him to reclaim what is rightfully his. And what makes the situation
even worse is that before long, Barry learns that his sweetheart Julie not
only lives on his estate, she's also the daughter of crooked Kenmore.
Barry's attempts to reclaim or at least invade his own estate become
more and more frequent, so ultimately, Kenmore and gang decide to lock him
up ...
In the meantime, a gang of gangsters from the USA (Noel Madison, Syd
Saylor, Matty Fain) have found out that there is a vast treasure hidden
somewhere in the estate, and eventually they invade the house, tie
everyone (but the locked in Barry) up and start to expose them to
poisonous gas, which seems to be just standing around in the house's
cellar. In the meantime, Barry has freed himself, and somehow he manages
to lock the gangsters up in a room, but then he sees pretty much everyone
in the cast about to be gassed to death, and he doesn't know what to do,
being unable to free them on time. Suddenly, Munson (George Rosener), a
man who was previously established as a madman, shows up besides him and
tells him to blow up a certain cylinder filled with gas that will
neutralize the poisonous gas - and everybody will be saved ... and
wouldn't you know it, the trick works.
And now, the solution to the mystery: Munson was once a brilliant
scientist who has developed a gas to counteract all poinonous gasses - but
then he went mad. Doc Kenmore from the USA has agreed to cure him, but to
that end he for some reason needed Barry's estate, which was thought to be
uninhabited ... but when Barry tried to claim the estate for himself,
everybody involved up to the home secretary saw Munson's healing procedure
in jeopardy ... and instead of just letting him in on the truth, they
tried to scare him away mobster-style. Now though that this is cleared up
and Munson has come to his senses thanks to the shock, everybody goes
treasurehunting ... and before you know it, Barry is really really rich
and Julie agrees to become his wife.
This film, a remake of an early talkie of the same name from 1929 also
produced by Chesterfield, is ridiculously far-fetched and
convoluted plot aside, an entertaining little mystery that is well played,
that moves along at a steady pace and that doesn't take itself too
seriously. It's not a gret film, mind you, but it's ok vintage
entertainment.
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find House of Secrets at adultvideouniverse.com
