Before Dawn

A pretty clairvoyant (Dorothy Wilson), her greedy father (Dudley Digges), a shady doctor (Warner Oland), and a detective (Stuart Erwin) all look for hidden gold in a haunted house. Nice little old dark house mystery with good direction from Irving Pichel. Dorothy Wilson isn't well known today but she impresses in this role. I'm not sure why she didn't have a bigger career. She's certainly talented enough and beautiful, too. Speaking of people not well-known, Stuart Erwin had a career that last five decades but most people wouldn't know him from Adam today. He was always a solid actor, usually in comedies. But here he shows he can handle being the leading man. He was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar a few years later but didn't win. Warner Oland takes time off from being Charlie Chan to be a bespectacled villain here. He's always good. Character actor Dudley Digges is reliable as ever. Jane Darwell has a brief bit but she's good. Gertrude Hoffman is great, too. Wait until you see her final scene. Overall, a solid cast and nice direction elevates a somewhat flimsy story. Very interesting for the time in that it treats psychic phenomena as real.