Under the inspired advertising slogan, "Horler for Excitement", Sydney Horler became an extremely popular and prolific writer in the 1930s. Under his own name and two pseudonyms, he published over 150 books. If this picturization of The House of Secrets represents a fair sample of his plotting and characterization abilities, the public was indeed sold a counterfeit, second-rate product. Not only are Horler's plots outrageously dependent on the most incredible co-incidences, but his characters are the leftovers of impossible melodrama. No attempt is made at vivifying these walking pasteboards with any semblances of credibility - let alone originality. And as for the dialogue, Horler's is so riddled and weighed down with the cliched, the mundane and the flatly ridiculous as to make it all seem as if the author's real intention was to write a spoof of Victorian melodrama, complete with energetic but completely smitten hero, beautiful but darkly mysterious heroine, secretive yet overly protective father, thuggish but stupid gangsters, helpful but simple-minded domestics, well-spoken but devious city men, dumb but implacable policemen, aloof yet timely detectives. Add a cackling lunatic or two, a couple of creepy henchmen and a blackmailing stranger (who disappears from the tale after receiving an elaborate introduction) and you have The House of Secrets.
A witless spoof, admittedly, but even this possible glimmer in the Horler darkness is negated by the deadly dull seriousness of all the actors on the screen - except Syd Saylor - who play this stupefying nonsense through from beginning to end with not so much as a twinkle of the eye, let alone tongues firmly in cheeks. No wonder Sidney Blackmer doesn't include this feeble effort in his filmography! 64 minutes - it seemed more like 164!
A witless spoof, admittedly, but even this possible glimmer in the Horler darkness is negated by the deadly dull seriousness of all the actors on the screen - except Syd Saylor - who play this stupefying nonsense through from beginning to end with not so much as a twinkle of the eye, let alone tongues firmly in cheeks. No wonder Sidney Blackmer doesn't include this feeble effort in his filmography! 64 minutes - it seemed more like 164!