This is a type of film where you need a scoreboard keep track of which character is involved in what scheme and related to who and what the purpose of their presence is. It's your typical dying relative discussing the will creates a mystery, but then it begins to twist in different ways and gets very convoluted. Like "Seven keys to Baldpate" (a much filmed creepy old Broadway play),it involves the mystery of seven keys, but these keys aren't individually owned entrances to a creepy old mansion but seven keys that are required to get into a dungeon like basement.

The desperation for someone to get these Keys leads to murder, and that creates some very creepy characterizations including a dour butler and his housekeeper wife, a mute valet who looks like he haunts houses professionally oh, and a mysterious character with a monkey played by Leslie Banks who is the top-billed lead and thus very important to the story.

The heroine is the young Lilli Palmer who is best known for her character parts as an older actress and her marriage to Rex Harrison. She's feisty yet vulnerable as she is given one of the keys, something that puts her life in jeopardy. Gina Malo is very funny as Palmer's best pal. There's also a detective who reminds me of NVM contract player Reginald Owen but is not. The film is highlighted by some genuinely spooky photographic shots around the dead man's mansion and on the mountainous roads heading up to his place, but there are many slow moments that leads this to a halt. A nice curiosity, it's memorable for its atmosphere but not really much as far as an original plot.

A muddled plot, directed in an extremely middling manner by Norman Lee, yet distinguished by the vibrant Lilli Palmer in the lead role. Mr Lunge's somewhat erratic hero seems as far at sea as the rest of us, but Leslie Banks has himself a grand old time as the villain. He receives some wonderful assistance too from his assistants, particularly Cathleen Nesbitt as a spooky maid of all work and Robert Montgomery as a vampire-visaged servant.

There are some occasions when Messrs Norman Lee, Ernest Palmer and Charles Gilbert manage to overcome an obviously limited budget to produce a few genuine thrills and atmospheric effects. All the same, they manage to work up very little suspense or even a passing interest in the plot. Pedestrian direction is the chief hindrance, but soporifically unfunny comic relief from Gina Malo, Richard Bird and even Mr Lunge himself doesn't help either. In short, this movie amounts to second-rate Edgar Wallace. If you're neither a Palmer or a Banks fan, give it a miss!

The movie opens with a shot of an old mansion being surrounded by a lightning storm. Could anything be more unoriginal? Opening like that, you know that there isn't going to be much to write home about. All the standard stuff you would expect to find in this kind of a movie is here.

An old and wealthy man (Aubrey Mallalieu) dies, leaving his estate naturally enough to his son, but the inheritance is locked away in the old guy's tomb and seven keys are needed to open it. The man's servants, of course (including a butler, played by Robert Montgomery, who looks vaguely like something that would have fit in nicely with the Addams Family) are convinced that they deserve the inheritance far more than the boy, and they set out to get it.

Basically the story revolves around the search for the missing key, as a woman named June from Canada (Lilli Palmer) turns out to be the heir to the fortune after the son disappears and isn't heard from for several years. She's in a contest with Dr. Mannetta (Leslie Banks) - your typical evil doctor type complete with a monkey who rides around on his shoulders, and who is a collector of torture equipment. Anyway, I found it all rather silly and not really all that interesting, although a bit funny in places. I love the character of Dick Martin (Romilly Lunge) for example. As the movie starts he's handing in his resignation from Scotland Yard when June walks in to the office to report a murder. June's cute, and Martin uses the murder as an opportunity to get a girlfriend. Then, smitten with her as he is - and suspicious of Mannetta as he is - he nevertheless leaves June alone all night in the mansion with Mannetta. It doesn't make much sense, but in a way that fit with the rest of the movie. 3/10