Inner Sanctum

Lew Landers' Inner Sanctum (1948) was notable for being the first movie ever produced by Walter Shenson, who went on to make A Hard Day's Night. This film is a distinct B-production with one sort of "A" star in Mary Beth Hughes. It is a thriller based on the long-running radio show and is important as a stylish and unsettling film noir -- a story within a story about a murderer (Charles Russell) on the run, stranded in a small town and taking up residence with a family so he can get to a young boy, the only witness in the vicinity of his crime. Landers didn't have a lot to work with, including a short running time; however, he kept the camera in motion throughout to provide a remarkable amount of suspense. The Alpha DVD is a decent if flawed presentation of the movie, tranferred from what looks like a fair-condition print -- all of the night shots (and there are a lot of them) have more than enough detail to allow us to discern their content and action, and while there are some missing frames, the movie is pretty much intact. The only glaring deficiency is a breakfast scene at 29 minutes in that is extremely dark and the light levels come up after about two minutes into that sequence. The usual six chapters on an Alpha release are sufficent to break the movie down, although it is so thick with plot developments and interactions that another two or three chapters wouldn't have been a bad idea. The disc opens on a simple three-selection menu that includes an onscreen Alpha catalog.