User Reviews

... 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.

Unfortunately a boring flick, and obviously the only way to see it is the butchered bootleg Public Domain version, which is so blurry and dark that at times you have hard time making out where the screen is. The leading actors are a nuisance. The man spends most of his screen time trying to appear nonchalant, charming and sexy, forgetting totally what the film is about and that he is a murder suspect because of some dame who played him for a goose to start with. The dame herself merely walks through the flick, being dignified if she's not busy appearing cute. It's a rather badly written stuff, never interesting or witty. No good camera work, no memorable soundtrack, no glamorous actresses or atmospheric sets. It only scratches the surface of the genre, and nothing happens if you miss this totally missable flick.

"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.

Only in the cinema could the romantic relationship of a model and a cabbie ever could happen. They don't usually happen even in film unless the cabbie is an exiled prince or something like that. But in Seven Doors To Death cabbie Chick Chandler hooks up with model June Clyde to solve a big mystery with several deaths involving jewels and the ownership of an apartment complex.

Chandler's dragged in unwillingly at the point of a gun by Clyde who commandeers him and his cab. She's fleeing a murder scene and Chandler's cab is totaled. After that Chandler declares himself a detective and of course solves the mystery.

The courtyard apartment complex looked something like the one in Rear Window where Jimmy Stewart watched the parade of life. Of course Rear Window is a far better film.

The cheap and tacky sets and inferior sound mark this PRC release. But most of all I couldn't accept the premise or Chandler as a romantic lead.

As the movie starts there's a scream, a gun shot and the sound of a body falling. The film shifts locations as a man in a car is hijacked by a woman on the run. In following her directions he ends up crashing his car and the woman runs away. He tries to follow the woman into an area with a small group of stores, only to end up discovering a dead body. The man notifies the police, who then find a body then the one he reported. From there its complication after complication, most of which are a bit clever but really have nothing to do with the plot and seem to be out of another movie. The conclusion when it comes seems to be tacked on and out of left field.

This a PRC programmer that is a perfect example of what a by the numbers low low budget second feature is like. The plot is set up in such away to keep you interested no matter where the plot goes. Its structured to run no more than the alloted time. It has a minimum of sets and just enough people to keep to make it look as though this might, possibly, be a real place (if you've never lived in the real world). Its also completely forgettable.

The plot has the group of stores being searched and researched again and again to find what ever the latest clue has revealed. Most of the time this is done in the dark so we really can't see where we are. Everyone is a suspect until the very end when the killer is revealed by broad leap of logic. If it wasn't for some rather weird asides, a dance number, a bit about making toast, and a few others, this movie could easily have run half its length. This isn't to say its a dull or bad movie, its not. Things are pleasantly confused for at least the first 15 minutes during which time you'll desperately be trying to figure out what you're watching. By then you'll be hooked since you'll want to know where this very messy movie is going.

This is a good movie, especially when viewed at 3am while curled up in bed. Its not high art nor is it something that you'll find becoming your favorite film of all time. Its an okay time passer which is what it was designed to be. What you'll take away is the odd sense that know one knew what these people were up to since some of the characters are off the wall (a body snatching embalmer who's an okay guy, for example) and some exposition that is ripe with sexual tension and implied situations the Hays office would never approve of.

On its own terms 7 out of 10.

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.

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.

The seven deadly doors open off a very pretty open courtyard. Right away I was scared— probably because I could have actually paid money to see this mess. If you can figure out the plot, the physics department may have a place for you. Poverty row PRC really cut more than corners with this one. The sets are few, and dark for more reason than atmosphere. For a supposed mystery, there's about as much suspense as watching a clock tick. But then it is 1944, and wartime audiences need any kind of escape. That's probably why usual sidekick Chick Chandler gets a shot at the lead and shows why he was better as a sidekick. He seems not to be taking anything too seriously. The highpoint may well be half-dressed Rebel Randall's shimmy and shake that unfortunately doesn't come til near the end. Otherwise, there's nothing to recommend in this woeful programmer.

There is definitely something of the stage play to this lightly amusing whodunit. Poor old architect "Jimmy" (Chick Chandler) finds himself embroiled in a murder - but whose. He finds one body, the police find another... Both he and "Mary" (June Clyde) are suspected and so to prove their innocence, they decide to join forces and track down the culprit - and that involves cellars, spooky passages and lots of spider's webs. It's but an hour long, this, but there's a distinct lack of weight to both the story and the cast. Indeed it's not just chemistry that's lacking, it's the actual ability to deliver the plentiful lines in anything like a convincing or scary fashion. I'm guessing there was little-to-no budget, the production is static and the sound effects used just a bit too often to help create a slight sense of menace as they almost stumble onto their quarry. It's not terrible, it's actually quite passable - just aim low.

A garrulous but slick PRC quickie with a sharp line in cynical wit, atmospherically lit by Robert Cline and fluidly directed by silent veteran Elmer Clifton, with a personable hero in Chick Chandler (who drives a car called Genevieve, which I don't think we actually see), plenty of mad or shifty-looking suspects and a couple of glamorous but tough broads with big forties shoulders (one of whom brawls energetically with the hero at one point).

The villain's modus operandi proves startlingly gruesome; anticipating real life psycho Ed Gein a few years later.