Like most old movies, "The Inner Sanctum" needs to be seen with the mindset of the period in which it took place. It's not a bad story - it's about fate, from the point of view that we each have a destiny and walk right into it.The beginning of the story takes place on a train, when Harold Dunlap (Charlie Russell) attempts to escape his wife by leaving the train in a small town. She chases after him, and as they're fighting, she goes after him with a nail file. He retaliates by grabbing it and killing her with it. He puts the body back on the train just as it's leaving the station.Moments later he hears a "hi" and realizes he's not alone - it's a freckled faced kid named Mikey (Dale Belding).Harold has to stay in town due to problems with the roads, and he winds up at a rooming house run by Mike's mother (Lee Patrick). Here's where we run into trouble. Mike's mom is overprotective, yet this kid was out in the pitch black hanging around alone at a railway station. She's a little tight on space, so she puts her new boarder, Harold, in with Mike. I guess times were more innocent then. At one point, suspicious that Mike knows it was him at the station, Harold takes off his shirt to show the kid he doesn't have any cuts. Nowadays it takes you right out of the movie,While at the boarding house, Harold meets the pretty girl who's been around the block, Jean (Mary Beth Hughes), which complicates matters.The end has a neat twist.This film would have been much better served at a different studio and starring people like Bogart and Bacall or Ladd and Lake. Mary Beth Hughes is very cute, but the script would have packed more punch with some weightier names.It's okay, directed by the prolific Lew Landers, and runs about 62 minutes.

This film turned out to be more of a lesson for kids: why kids shouldn't go out after dark, "You can get hurt" like Mike's mom kept saying throughout the film to Mike. Also a minor lesson in why young ladies shouldn't fall for the mysterious stranger bad guy image. That's basically how this film was summoned up.This film is a comedy half the time, and a drama the other half. Lots of focus on the kid Mike. Mike likes to go out after dark and he gets in lots of trouble with his mom for doing so. As I said earlier, this film is a lesson on why kids shouldn't go out after dark - mainly.The other focus is Harold Dunlap - the reason we are suppose to be watching this film to begin with. Harold committed murder - really in self defense - and is on the run from the police.You'd think this film would focus more on the "Inner Sanctum" world of Harold with things like hearing his thoughts & odd things he does & says but the film is not like that. Oh he does a couple of odd things throughout the film not like one would think nor do we ever hear his thoughts. It's more of a focus on Mike and Harold's relationship with him.It's an alright film but it does not play out like one would like it to or think it would be. I still kinda like the film.6/10

Inner Sanctum is directed by Lew Landers and written by Jerome T. Gollard. It stars Charles Russell, Mary Beth Hughes, Dale Belding, Billy House, Fritz Leiber, Nana Bryant and Lee Patrick. Music is by Leon Klatzkin and cinematography by Allen G. Siegler.A psychic tells a woman, Marie Kembar (Eve Miller), a story on board a train. He tells of a man, Harold Dunlap (Russell), who after killing a woman makes his way into town and finds he can't leave after a flood renders all residents confined to the area. Taking lodgings in a boarding house, Dunlap finds he is sharing a room with the only witness to his crime... Clocking in at just over an hour in length, Inner Sanctum is very much in the vein of a quintessential "B" programmer. Part noir suspenser, part Twilight Zone mystery, it's a quirky little picture that manages to blend off-kilter humour with genuine tenseness. Starting off with the ambiguously filmed killing of a woman, who is then unceremoniously dumped on the observation platform of a departing train, the film then unravels in small town Americana in a manner befitting Hitchcock. Enter a group of colourful/eccentric/shifty characters in one boarding house and the story explodes in to an array of fakes, fancies, vagaries of fate, youthful innocence and dangerous sexual attractions. All filmed in a deliberately noir style of murky shades and half lights.The production value is inevitably low, but it works in the narrative's favour. The acting is a mixed bag, but there is nothing here to hurt the flow or feel of the picture. Standing out are Russell (The Purple Heart) who is wonderfully sly and cunning, Patrick (The Maltese Falcon/Mildred Pierce) who plays the harried mother role with verve and doting dominance, and young Belding has the requisite amount of bratty boyishness and confused innocence. But best of the bunch is Hughes (The Great Flamarion/The Ox-Bow Incident), who slinks her way through the movie making moves on Dunlap even when she knows what he has done! Yes she's that desperate to thrive on danger and get out of this small town nowhereville. This characterisation is just one of the many pessimistic touches that help to make Inner Sanctum a rewarding experience. Killer ending as well! 7/10

This black and white movie has many fine moments but it does not have the top box office cast which could have made it a classic. It has a small town feel similar to Picnic with William Holden but it did not have William Holden and Kim Novak.The lead actors do their scenes well. The guy and gal just aren't quite right for a feature film. The female lead is beautiful enough to be in any movie in any role. She also was great in her scenes. But this movie just needs a Bogart and Bacall or Tracy and Hepburn or Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney. The rest of the cast is fine.The boy who plays Mike is the best part of this movie. There is a bedroom scene with him and the villain which rings so true for its era. Watch as the male lead plays some word games in the dark with the kid. Innocence and terror side by side. It was common in the 1940s to have two guys sleeping in the same bed in movies, especially in comedies, but also in Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes. In this movie the guys sleep together in one room but with separate beds.This is a very good movie but it could have been great. This might make a good double bill with Picnic or Strangers on a Train or The Lady Vanishes.I hope Dale Belding (Mike) is still alive and well.