Want to vague that up a little more?

Sadly, what lies ahead is equally murky; an abyss, devoid of humor or purpose.  And that’s just this review.  Heyyoooo!

The maid is going from window to window in the Inn, closing the shutters on each.  Hey, get over yourself, no one is going to be peeking at you!  Well, maybe those four gangstas playing cards in the lobby.  And I mean “lobby” in the same sense that the Kramden’s had a “living room”.

There is a knock, and Boris Karloff instructs her to answer it.  A motorist asks for a room.  The Maid nervously says they are all booked up —  Perry Como ^[5] is in town and his posse of cardigan-wearing fans have descended on the city in their General Motors sedans and have rented rooms with toilets and showers like civilized people.  Thank God music fans will never degenerate to drifters, slobs and potheads.

She returns to the men and asks if they need anything else tonight.  Boris says for her to leave out 3 meat pies and 2 bottles of Claret ^[1], and whiskey.  She says, “They’re on the dresser” and quickly pivots to leave.  This raises several questions:

• Who’s not getting a meat pie?  I don’t spot any likely vegans in the group.
• Is there a dresser in the lobby?
• Is the dresser in one of the rooms?
• Are the guys all staying in one room?
• Is there any point in continuing this episode?

Dull story short, the crew stole the ruby out of the eye of a statue.  They mention Bombay, but then the writer pointlessly makes up the country of Indostan.^[2] So maybe he meant the gin.  Trigger Warning: One says they luckily “gave those dark devils the slip.”  

They go on and on in hammy, overbearing English accents about merchant seamen, not being able to sell the ruby because it was stolen from a temple, escaping Indostan,  betraying Boris, and the gender fluidity of Jo in Little Women.

One by one, 3 men with turbans enter the inn to retrieve the ruby.  I gotta say, I’m kinda on their side.  Boris and his pals did steal the jewel and smuggle a piece of their heritage out of the country like the Elgin Marbles or the Djibouti Jacks.  You can’t really do that and be the good guys without a cool hat and a kick-ass score by John Williams.

You know, soap and water will take care of a lot of that.

Sadly, all 3 of the Indostanleys are killed by Boris’s thugs. ^[3] However, then the statue itself appears and takes back his ruby eye which was inexplicably left on the windowsill.  It then hypnotizes the men to go outside, where they are killed.  Maybe that should have been Plan A.  The last to be lured out is Boris.  He says, “This, I did not foresee” which is a pretty good callback to an earlier comment by him.  

This was tough going.  As mentioned, the English accents were overwrought and difficult to understand.  The poor transfer did not help.  There was not much story even though is it based on a play.  Boris Karloff just isn’t very interesting unless he has bolts in his neck.  Maybe the worst feature was the intrusive organ ^[4] that seemed omnipresent.  It really was a parody of horror movie scoring.

So, a very dull outing.  I rate it a Motel 6.

Other Stuff:

• [1]  Clatter per the closed captioning.
• [2]  My guess is the writer didn’t know this was an actual word.  But it ain’t no country.
• [2]  Upon a, literally, more sober examination, it appears to not be a word.  I think the definition I found earlier was just a rogue lexicographer. It does, however, appear as a place in the parable about elephant and six blind dudes.
• [3]  Yes, I know.
• [4]  That’s what she said.
• [5]  Perry Como was yuge in 1949.  But the top song was Ghost Riders in the Sky by Vaughn Monroe.  Here is the version by Johnny Cash: