Hello,
I hope you can find this one so I can watch it as a grown up and put the horrors to bed.
The film is black & white; I remember it was about a series of women being murdered. There was a whistle involved somehow, maybe on a necklace? Turned out the killings were being done by a gorilla from a circus (I think!) but the scene that terrified me was at the end when you think it's all over but one body is missing. The detective tapped his pipe on the mantelpiece and a corpse dropped down the chimney and scared the crap out of me.
Any idea?
Fantastic site! Keep up the good work (and medication!)
— Ian G.
UNK SEZ:: Ian, thanks for the traumafession! I have a guess to your trauma but I'm not 100% sure. I'm thinking it may be 1932's MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE which is based on a story by EDGAR ALAN POE and stars BELA LUGOSI. I say this because in the film there is most certainly a circus-escaped, murdering ape and a female corpse is indeed discovered in a chimney.
Unfortunately though, a recent watch of that movie HERE revealed no whistle and I'm afraid a pipe did not take part in the discovery of the body. Take a peek at the images provided at this fine place HERE and let us know if it looks familiar. Otherwise, does anybody out there know of a guiltier looking ape?
I WOULD think it's the one from the '80s with George C. Scott and Val Kilmer, but he said b/w. 🙁
There's also the 3D Murders in the Rue Morgue with Steve Forrest and Karl Malden. It's not in B&W but maybe that's it?
Wow. Â That last part is actually a name that trauma of mine that I never got around to writing.
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In the movie that I saw there was no gorilla – but it was black and white and it was this abandoned house and I guess this prisoner guy is hiding out in it and a woman comes by – maybe her car broke down – and she goes into the house with him and at one point they both hear on the radio about an escaped prisoner who has a scar on his face and she looks at him and he has a scar on his face and then some other stuff happens – like she writes "help me" on the inside of one of the kitchen cupboards in lipstick – but anyway at the end some detective or other person is in the house and the prisoner is hiding and has the woman with him and I think the door slams or something and a dead body drops out of the chimney.
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I didn't mean to steal your thunder or anything – but it just sounded a lot like the one I saw – but only if you mixed a couple movies together.