JohnHowardReid The Great Depression put an end to the huge onslaught of Broadway mystery and suspense plays which reached a peak in 1927. These plays do not generally translate at all well as film noir, although exceptions can be made for The Bat (1926) and The Hole in the Wall (1930). The film version of "The Hole in the Wall" was formerly available on a most interesting VintageFilmBuff DVD. You've all heard of a part-talkie. Well, the VFB release is actually a part-silent, roughly 95% talking, yet 5% silent — and by "silent" I mean dead silent. Except for two sequences, namely music in a night club, and crash effects in the El — there is absolutely no sound at all in the silent action footage that is cut into the movie from time to time. However, 'The Hole in the Wall' does most effectively showcase some really spooky sets. These alone make the movie worth viewing. The characters are somewhat creepy too, but the screenplay chickens out on allowing them to reach their full noir potential. Particularly disappointing is the "geek" (v. Nightmare Alley) who is given a great build-up as a potential menace (and even enacts that part in a publicity still with Donald Meek), but is then allowed to slip away into almost nothing. Edward G. Robinson, of course, is at home as the heavy with a heart, while Claudette Colbert looks appropriately unglamorous as the revengeful convict-turned-fake-mystic.

touser2004 Poorly lit and poorly written but interesting from a historical perspective.You can watch on You Tube under The Charlatan. Colbert is young and not as confident as in her later films Robinson only shows glimpses of his gangsta persona but it is still interesting to watch The plot is very simple and unbelievable.

MartinHafer The plot for "The Hole in the Wall" is utterly ridiculous and I am pretty sure that audiences back in 1929 must have thought so as well. Sometimes you can still enjoy a ridiculous film...but this strains anyone's ability to suspend disbelief!When the film begins, a gang of thieves is stuck. Their fake psychic partner is dead and unless they can find a new one, they'll have to disband or get real jobs. When Jean (Claudette Colbert) arrives on the scene, the boss (Edward G. Robinson) thinks perhaps she has the talent to be their next 'Spiritual Adviser'. She agrees with one condition--that they also kidnap Mrs. Ramsey's young daughter. It seems that Ramsey had sent Jean to prison when she was innocent and now Jean wants revenge. But instead of selling back the kid, she plans on raising the kid to be a little crook in order to get her revenge!!! Talk about complicated and wildly improbable!! Even more improbably, Jean writes a letter to Ramsey telling her of her plan!!! Who would be that stupid?!?!So is this any good? Not really, but for fans of classic Hollywood, it does give them a chance to see Robinson and Colbert in their first talking picture. Neither were famous at this point and it was only Robinson's third film and Colbert's second and she looks far different than she would in the 1930s-40s. Still, Colbert is pretty natural on screen, but unfortunately Robinson is rather flat. His usual bluster and bigger than life persona is absent and the character is a bit dull despite being the gang's leader. In fact, the whole film is very flat and lacks excitement where it should be.

ackstasis Robert Florey began his career with a number of celebrated silent avant garde shorts films – including 'The Love of Zero (1927)' and 'The Life and Death of 9413, a Hollywood Extra (1928)' – all strongly indebted to 'The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920)' and German Expressionism. Therefore, it's a little disappointing that his features aren't all that interesting. 'Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932)' was visually stunning, thanks largely to cinematographer Karl Freund, but was stunted by ham- fisted acting and bad dialogue (perhaps a side-effect of the director's poor command of English). 'The Hole in the Wall (1929),' bound by the restrictions of early sound technology, even lacks Florey's usual visual flair – the only exception is the entrance to Madam Mystera's haunt, which has the warped ceiling of a 'Caligari' set. Perhaps the primary interest here is the film's cast, which includes two future stars in their first talkie.The story itself is vaguely interesting: a shrewd shyster called The Fox (Edward G. Robinson) recruits a wrongly-accused ex-con (Claudette Colbert, in her second role) to help perpetrate a Spiritualism scam. (Spiritualism was all the rage in the 1920s, its greatest proponent being author Arthur Conan Doyle, who used his Professor Challenger character to promote the field in his 1926 novel "The Land of Mist"). Unfortunately, there's very little tension in this film. The possible drowning of a little girl should have made for suspenseful storytelling, and Florey was generally an expert at editing rhythmic montages, but here there's no urgency in his cross-cutting, and the dialogue unfolds with unnatural slowness, as though to make certain that the sound equipment is catching everything. Finally, I was very much surprised that, after an hour of exposing Spiritualism as a fraud, the film suddenly tosses in an authentic psychic moment, and nobody thinks twice about it.