I Love a Mystery (1945)

This first of three B-movies is based on a popular radio program, "I Love a Mystery". It is about a mystery worked on by two pals, Doc and Jack...although, oddly, they are not that prominently featured in the film. The film begins with a rather grisly scene where one of the detectives goes to the morgue...and finds a decapitated man. The story then goes back in time to when Jefferson Monk (George Macready) came to the private detectives. He has a bizarro story about some weird story about being followed and later being approached by a secret society...because they want to buy his head after he dies! What happens next in the story is just odd and instead of telling you more, I'll just say it's very convoluted and unusual!The best thing about this film is the creepy atmosphere. Also, Macready was a great actor and was excellent here as well. As far as the detectives, however, they were a dull pair and really had little to do until the very end. Worth seeing but so strange you are left a bit confused by the whole thing.

Didn't find this movie boring.Macready definitely the star,and outshines screen wife Nina Foch.She cracked that it was hysterical George as Dame May Witty's son in My Name Is Julia Ross,but without him as a co-star,she wouldn't have a chance to show she could act.He was so much better than her in all their screen pairings.Bannon & Yarborough were pretty good,neither of them up to Macready's acting either.That George gets trashed so much is beyond comprehension,he was great!He always draws my attention right away,never resulting in cheap tricks to cover a lack of acting talent like today's stars who have to rely on six pack abs.This movie almost as good as another I Love A Mystery film,The Missing Juror,also with the wooden Jim Bannon.

***SPOILERS*** Hum dingier of a mystery involving sleuths Jack Parker and his sidekick Doc Long, Jim Bannon & Barton Yarborough,in the case of the missing head, that was foretold to happen a year in advance, of San Francisco socialite Jefferson Monk, George Macready.Monk already lost his head in a car accident just as the movie started so there was no mystery if he'll keep his head or not. It's then that we get the whole story, in flashback, from Jack Packard and Doc Long to the events that lead to Monk ending up a head shorter and about eight to ten pounds lighter.It all started three days earlier at the Samovar Club where Packard and Long were having a few drinks. Seeing Monk go crazy when his lady friend Jane Anderson, Carole Mathews, called him a coward Packard tries to get the very disturbed and angry man to settle down by offering him a strong hot Russian coffee. It's when the flaming coffee pot suddenly, and accidentally, falls and almost burns Monk that Packard and Doc Long agree to walk the very nervous Monk home. It's then that they get the story right from the horses, Jefferson Monk, mouth as to the reasons for Monks acute paranoia.Monk has been scared out of his wits after he returned from India with his now invalid wife Ellen, Nina Fuch. Being directed by this blind man, who seemed to have been following him all the way from India, that he ran into on the Streets of San Fancisco to this secret underground monastery Monk's learns the truth about himself and his destiny. Monk finds all this out from the blind mans master who calls himself Mr. "G", Justin Reeves.Mr. "G" turned out to be the Grand Master of the secret society that calls itself the Barokan. A society that originates beyond the ice locked mountains of Tibet. Monk is told that he's a dead ringer of the societies founder and spiritual leader "the Great One' who's been dead and mummified for some 1,000 years! With "The Great One's" head now quickly giving into the rigors of time and weather Mr. "G" wants Monk to replace the cults founders now decomposing head with his own! Mr."G" even goes so far as offering Monk $10,000.00 to sell his head to him! This just scratches the surface of what the movie "I Love a Mystery" has in store for it's audience. The film really has to do with murder betrayal a falling out between thieves and a number of puzzling events that all lead to the truth behind both Mr. "G" predictions as well as his true identity.Monk who seems to be normal at first, despite his paranoia, goes homicidal when he finds out the real reason for what's been happening to him since his trip with Ellan, who's suddenly falling ill was also predicted by Mr. "G", to India. This all has to do with two million dollars that Monk is to inherit under very strict and unusual circumstance's. You get the impression that Monk's head, or loss of it, has really nothing to do with what's going on in the film. Except in the cold hard fact that Monk is somehow being set up to be murdered, or forced to commit suicide, for the two million dollars that he's soon to inherit.It's only later that the prediction of Monk losing his head, in order to replace the decomposing head of "The Great One", becomes a reality that has you left wondering what all this losing your head business is really about. It's also that reality that has both Jack Packer and Doc Long who were on "the Missing Head Case" wondering, as they recall the mysterious story of the now dead and headless Jefferson Monk, if there really is something supernatural about the whole thing after all?

I am a fan of mystery movies, and this is one of my all time favorites. I love the plot twists and the eerie atmosphere. I remember when I first saw this film, many years ago, how astonished I was when the villains are murdered one by one. My only complaint with the film is the phony arrest and jail break of Jack Packard. This was silly and unnecessary. Jack Packard should have been able to nail the killer without these shenanigans. This being said, I recommend this film, especially if you like mysteries and are looking for something different. Jack Packard, played by Jim Bannon, is an excellent screen detective, and Doc Long, played by Barton Yarborough, is a likeable sidekick who provides some comic relief, and best of all is Jefferson Monk played by George Macready.