mark.waltz Taking the three part "I Love a Mystery" to a new level of confusion, this second entry deals with shrunken heads, missing heads, poisoned darts and an extremely convoluted plot that had me squinting, huh? Jim Bannon's Jack Packard is back, and having just solved the mystery of an Asian cult demanding the head of a man doomed to die within a year, he's now dealing with South American head shrinkers, and all I can say is that even psychiatric help couldn't help my head figure this one out. On a return viewing, it confounded me more, and if the first film in the series had a pretentious ring to it, this one is one for whom the audaciousness bell had tolled. Artistically gorgeous to look at, it is twice as wordy as the first entry in the series (which did improve with the third and final installment), and is a far cry from Columbia's other mystery series of the 1940's of which there were many. At least even with characters coming in and out so fast, I could follow the "Lone Wolf", "Boston Blackie" and "Crime Doctor" series rather easily, but this one just left me shaking my head so much I thought it would fall off. Anita Louise is the leading heroine in this one, and there are all sorts of shady characters coming in and out, and an obvious villain that stood out like a sore neck.

csteidler Jack Packard and Doc Long are back—the detectives of I Love a Mystery. Jim Bannon is Packard: serious, cool, businesslike, and tough to fool. Barton Yarborough is Doc—he of the southern drawl, gentle sarcasm, and vaguely comical attitude and behavior. Together they tackle another case, this time attempting to sort out a set of entanglements involving family and colleagues of a missing adventurer.The opening minutes set up the mystery quite well—the characters are introduced and laid out carefully, but it's genuinely tough to tell who is who, who's on which side. Gradually, deliberately, the mystery opens and unravels and eventually builds to a rather exciting climax. The story itself features a shrunken head, the mysterious disappearance of an explorer who may or may not be dead in a jungle somewhere, a collection of his mutually suspicious family members, and a taxidermist who keeps a large black mountain lion in a cage outside his shop.The acting is passable if not great…Bannon and Yarborough are fine if slightly bland, Anita Louise and Michael Duane are tightly wound and thus somewhat unpredictable as the young couple, Mona Barrie is suitably concerned yet perhaps a tad shady as wife and stepmother.The dialog occasionally aims at humor (standing next to a museum case of shrunken heads, Packard suggests that he and Doc put their own heads together, at which Doc winces, "I wish you wouldn't say that"—ha ha) but mostly it's a straight mystery that plays up the spookiness of such elements as said shrunken heads, some poison dart guns, the growling cat, and the general air of suspicion that the family members create around themselves and each other.A tidy little mystery that's tightly plotted and efficiently produced.

dbborroughs In the wreckage if a plane crash a box is found with a shrunken head inside. The Head is similar to one that is on display in the city museum. When the police bring it to the museum to see if they can help determine its origin its found to be similar to one already on display. While at the museum the Museum the police detective meets Jack Packard and Doc Long who are at the museum to meet a new client, the wife of them man who brought the original heads for display. It seems the woman thinks her step daughter is having her followed, so that she can be killed since her husband has gone missing in the jungle. From there the story spirals out as Jack and Doc try to unravel what the daughter is up to and what happened to her father (their client's husband).Good but not great mystery has way too many plot threads running through it for a 66 minute film. In addition to the basic mystery we have murder, blackmail, a black panther, more questions about the head, taxidermy, shrinks and one or two other things. To be certain it keeps the plot moving but at the same time it feels thrown together.Based on Carlton E Morse's classic radio show I Love Mystery (later I Love Adventure) the film makes limited use of its transferred characters who seem to simply wander through events in order just to clean up some one else's mess. Forgive me the radio show worked because Jack and Doc were men of action not reaction. That said Jack Packard comes across as an imposing figure here who I think comes across as being able to kick just about anyone's butt if he chose to. (I've rarely ever seen any character radiate such an aura of being in charge and the baddest man in the room while doing absolutely nothing other than standing.) I have no idea why they were brought in to this story since if they were this under utilized in the first and third films in the series its understandable why it ended with three films.Still the film is not bad and is worth a look for those who like mysteries of the 1940's.(As for the title's meaning, I don't have a god answer except it sounds good.)

cinema_universe "The Devil's Mask" (1946) is one of the "I LOVE A MYSTERY" series of B-movies produced by Columbia Studios, based on the then-popular radio show. Poker faced Jim Bannon heads up a duo of private detectives who appear in each of the mysteries.This one begins after a shrunken head is found in the ruins of a crashed plane that was headed from California to Latin America. A woman, who believes that her step-daughter is planning to kill her, hires the pair of detectives.The mystery deepens when the woman's butler is killed by a poison dart from a blow-gun similar to those used by the jungle tribe of head-hunters responsible for the shrunken head. Add a blackmailing psychiatrist, a crazy taxidermist, a ferocious black panther, a few nebulous characters of dubious repute, and you have an atmospheric little chiller that's most enjoyable.You may be able to figure out who the killer is, but that won't stop you from searching out more of these neat little "I LOVE A MYSTERY" thrillers.