Night Key: Boris Karloff vs. A Bunch of Burglars

Is this worth your time?

If you have an hour or so to kill and a soft spot for 1930s B-movies, sure. It is not going to change your life, but it moves fast enough that you won't get bored. If you need tight logic or high-stakes drama, look elsewhere.

Boris Karloff is basically the only reason to watch this. He plays Dave Mallory, a guy who invents a super-fancy alarm system called the 'Night Key.' He spends most of the movie looking annoyed, which is honestly a mood I can relate to.

Gadgets and Goons

The whole premise is basically: inventor builds cool thing, bad guys want to steal cool thing. The way they force him to help them is pretty standard stuff. There is a scene where he has to override his own alarm system, and you can tell the movie is just trying to get to the next plot point as quickly as possible.

The pacing is a bit weird. It feels like the director was rushing to catch a train. Sometimes things happen way too fast, like a heist that takes all of thirty seconds to set up and execute. Other times, characters just stand around talking about the alarm's wiring like they're reading a manual.

• The alarm panels look like they were made out of old radio parts.
• The bad guys are remarkably forgettable.
• Karloff's performance is surprisingly grounded, even when the dialogue is absolute nonsense.

I couldn't help but think about how different this is from something like The Mystery of the Eiffel Tower. That movie has a certain flair, whereas this just feels like a job someone had to finish by Friday.

There is this one moment where Karloff is trying to fix a wire while a thug looms over him with a gun. The thug is just standing there, doing absolutely nothing for like ten seconds. It’s hilarious. You can practically hear the director yelling, 'Just stay there and look menacing!'

It’s not a masterpiece. It doesn’t try to be. It’s just a scrappy little flick with a legend in the lead role. Sometimes, that is enough. Just don't expect it to keep you up at night with deep thoughts about the nature of security or invention.

Also, the ending happens so abruptly I actually checked to see if my stream had skipped a scene. Nope. It just ends. Just like that. Classic. 🕵️‍♂️