Leofwine_draca Typical "old dark house" comedy-horror-mystery yarn, influenced by THE CAT AND THE CANARY which had enjoyed great success with Bob Hope a year earlier. While admittedly real-life performer Kay Kyser and his band of musical misfits - which includes the exceptionally goofy Ish Kabbibie, complete with his influential ridiculous haircut - may not be to everybody's taste, and the years have tamed and made the jokes clichéd, YOU'LL FIND OUT has a spirit of fun which makes it impossible to dislike. Even though the film runs at ninety-five minutes, it never drags and once you get over the initial introduction scenes, there's plenty of fun to be had as our bumbling idiots traipse around a spooky country mansion and try desperately not to get killed.Although (as is often the case with these comedy-horrors) the supernatural turn out to be predictably down-to-earth at the film's close, there are still plenty of spooky shenanigans before that, especially a hair-raising séance scene involving a floating disembodied head which is genuinely shuddersome after all these years, a magnificent macabre sight. This film is worth watching for horror buffs too for the casting of three of the genre's finest performers - Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, and Peter Lorre. A turbaned Lugosi is never anything less than sinister from when he first appears in a mirror and really seems to be enjoying himself in his minor role, sending up his horror persona. Karloff in comparison is his typically genteel self until his darker side is revealed later on in the film, and finally Lorre has a ball as the fraudulent professor, inimitably reading lines with his silky voice and creating plenty of shudders. Even Kyser, who starts off as being exceptionally irritating, is quite amiable as the bumbling investigator and there are some many things going on that the running time flies by. A worthwhile curiosity, not the best perhaps but definitely not bad, and worth watching just to see the famed horror trio in their only appearance together.

samgrass-3 Here's a film with a good premise – an heiress has been threatened and plans to spend the weekend hosting her 21st birthday at the family's gloomy old mansion. Among the suspicious cast of characters are Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, and Peter Lorre. That' s the good news. Now, here's the bad news. The star is Kay Kyser. Yes, Kay is asked by his business manager (Dennis O'Keefe) to supply the entertainment at said birthday party. Janis Bellacrest (Helen Parrish) is the business manager's fiancé. Karloff, Lorre and Lugosi are pretty much wasted as the villains, although, Thank Goodness, none of them serves as a "red herring." Good only for fans of the villainous trio and any hardcore Kay Kyser fans (if there are any). Kyser does five numbers in the movie, thus validating the need for a fast-forward button.

JoeKarlosi I just watched this only for the first time, and I liked it. Much better than I thought it would be, and I have avoided this film for my whole life. I even had it recorded off AMC since around 1989 and I've never bothered with it. What a mistake. This was my first exposure to Kay Kyser, the famous '40s band leader/comedian, and he was okay. He agrees to bring his orchestra (including the annoying Ish Kabbible -- but the less said about him, the better) to a young girl's 21st birthday bash at a spooky mansion. Unfortunately, three criminal masterminds (Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, and Bela Lugosi) are on hand to try and kill her. Karloff, Lorre, and Lugosi were all quite good in their parts, I thought. They worked together well as the three bad guys and I was surprised that there were actual horror trappings in this film: a lot of thunder, lightning, and mystery. It's more of a comedy/mystery with a few musical numbers strewn about. The main trouble is that it's a little too long at nearly 100 minutes, but it had the right mixture for a good time. **1/2 out of ****

neojim I see that most of the comments here focus on the movie's cast and genre, while only "A great gimmick in this movie!," 27 March 2003, identifies the special sound effect used, the Sonovox. It's my opinion that the Sonovox is the real "star" of this movie.In brief, the Sonovox involves a source sound (such as a sound effect or musical instrument) fed through a power amplifier into two small sound transducers, like those used for horn loudspeakers that have disk rather than cone diaphragms (constructed like earphones). These transducers are pressed against a performer's throat on each side of the area outside the voice box (larynx). Audio coupled from the drivers into the voice box becomes a substitute for vocal chord stimulation, while the performer silently and carefully forms the usual speaking or singing voiced sounds using only gestures made with the mouth and tongue. An especially high quality Sonovox effect results when a well trained performer additionally speaks the unvoiced fricative components ("s", "t", "sh", etc.). A sensitive microphone closely placed in front of the performer's mouth captures the Sonovox sound for recording.Most of my fondest Sonovox recollections come from the 1940's. A couple of famous examples of the Sonovox technique are found in radio advertising, where an antacid product was proclaimed by a chugging steam locomotive sounding like "Bromo-Seltzer, Btomo- Seltzer ...," and the need to use Lifebouy soap was promoted by a high-tone to low-tone fog horn that belched "Beeeee-Ohhhhh" (for body odor).Perhaps one of the grandest uses of the device is found in the RKO Radio Pictures 1940 movie You'll Find Out. Here the Sonovox produces ghostly sounds such as howling winds that talk, while the Sonovox mechanism is amply (albeit somewhat unrealistically) showcased. But the best part is the concluding musical numbers where Harry Babbitt causes musical instruments "sing" along with Ginny Simms. In the first tune Harry Sonovox's with the saxophone section and muted trumpets to the song "I'd Know You anywhere" (Ginny does this one in a normal fashion midway through the film). The melody then segues into "One Track Mind" sung by Ginny, with Harry adding duet support both naturally and through the Sonovox with the clarinets. This all too brief Sonovox musical segment still runs chills up and down my spine, and is the epitome of Sonovox enhanced entertainment.As can be deduced from the Sonovox operating description given above, producing a Sonovox sound requires specialized equipment generally unavailable to most hobbyists and musicians. However, in the early 1970's Peter Frampton developed a Sonovox like device known as a Talk Box. This much simplified unit involves a single transducer with an flexible plastic tube to transfer electric guitar music to the mouth of the performer. By mouthing the words or other effects, the guitar player emits a Sonovox type sound into a microphone. Talk Boxes may be obtained commercially for between $100-$300. But this isn't the only modern imitation of the Sonovox. The implementation of artificial speech by means of the channel vocoder provides another way for doing the job. Quite a few hardware and software versions of these exist. There is a down-loadable PC program that is quite effective in producing Sonovox sounds and music, and the best thing about it is that it's free.