Carole Lombard stars with Randolph Scott, Alan Dinehart, Vivienne Osborne, and H.B. Warner in "Supernatural" from 1933, directed by Victor Halperin. Halperin apparently did not like Lombard's performance in this, regarding her as better in comedy.The story begins with a woman, Ruth Rogen (Osborne), on death row after being convicted of several murders of men with whom she was involved. She has asked one of her exes who managed to stay alive, Paul Bavian (Dinehart) to visit her in prison. He's the one who betrayed her to the police, so one suspects, despite her forgiving words, that she's hoping to make a shiv out of soap and let him have it should he show up. Bavian is a fake medium, and he contacts the twin sister, Roma (Lombard), of one of Rogen's victims, saying he has a message from her brother. This of course is the first step in getting his hands on her money.A doctor, Carl Houston (Warner) gets Rogen to agree to let him have her body after execution so he can do some sort of electronic ray experimentation, believing that the mind goes on after death. Rogen agrees to it, hoping this means she can still get at Bavian.It happens that during one of his experiments, Roma arrives to see him and Rogen's mind takes over hers. Enjoyable film, as preposterous as they come, with some wonderful cinematography and great sets. The beautiful, glamorous Lombard does a terrific job as the sweet, unhappy Roma becoming the murderous Rogen, and the other performances are excellent, though they may seem a bit dated now. Beryl Mercer as Bavian's landlady is terrific in a small role, and Vivienne Osborne is a standout.See this if you have the opportunity.

All leading ladies must have something in their repertoire which they despise. Myrna Loy had "The Mask of Fu Manchu" and Carole Lombard has this, an hour long thriller where she is the vessel which a dead murderess uses to seek revenge. Not a great film by any means (and one that Lombard resented having to make), it is actually pretty enjoyable for its spooky atmosphere, haunting photography, and the melodramatic performance of Vivienne Osborne as the most malicious psychopathic murderess in film history. There's a good thrill or two to be had in this, especially when nosy landlady Beryl Mercer gets a bit too nosy and the antics of doctor H.B. Warner who fears that once Osborne is executed for her crimes, her evil spirit may not be finished.Lombard doesn't really get much to do in this other than open her eyes extremely widely for the scenes where she is infiltrated by the dead woman's spirit. It certainly wasn't a juicy part for her after all the good things she had been doing up to that point and I can see why she resented having to do it. You have to suspend belief in many places, and if you manage to do that, you will find yourself having a good time.

By the thinnest of plot connections in Supernatural is millionaire heiress Carole Lombard connected to Vivienne Osbourne a serial murderess who is awaiting her execution in prison. Alan Dinehart, Osbourne's sometime boyfriend is the one who turned her in to the authorities because he was afraid. With good reason as it turns out.Dinehart is a fake medium, but H.B. Warner is the real deal, a psychologist studying life after death. He wants Osbourne's body after she dies for experimentation and she agrees to it.Turns out he's a family friend of Carole Lombard who is mourning the recent death of her brother, leaving her sole heir to a vast fortune. And Dinehart has designs on it through her. Warner has the best performance in this film. His scientist is part Dr. Frankenstein and part Dr. Van Helsing, the best parts of both. Closely following is Dinehart who is definitely one scurvy rat.Lombard did far better work in her career in those screwball comedies than she does her as a frightened heiress who gets possessed by the spirit of a killer. Supposedly a female serial killer has not been identified, but apparently Supernatural anticipates one will eventually be found.Randolph Scott plays Lombard's boyfriend. He was doing B westerns for Paramount at the time, based on Zane Grey stories mostly. He looks like he'd rather be back in the saddle than in the tuxedo he wears mostly in this film. Of course his part is colorless and he's given little to do, but look concerned.Not the best work for fans of either Carole Lombard or Randolph Scott.

Having independently made one of the most unusual horror films up to that time in WHITE ZOMBIE (1932), the Halperin Brothers were given the opportunity to duplicate its success – on a bigger budget, relatively speaking – by a major studio, Paramount. Alas, the result wasn't as good and, in fact, SUPERNATURAL emerged as a lesser addition to the studio's brief output in the genre during its Pre-Code heyday! Despite a nice opening montage sequence depicting the exploits of the murderess (Vivienne Osborne), it takes a while to get going: Carole Lombard only appears 15 minutes into the movie, and the possession plot only really comes into play during the last 15 (interestingly, the 'transference of souls at the moment of death' gimmick was also featured in EXORCIST III [1990] – though it's unlikely this element was derived from the film in question). That said, I enjoyed SUPERNATURAL a good deal and there are some undeniably stylish sequences throughout.Still, one might say that luscious Lombard's virtually the whole show here, though she isn't totally comfortable in her role. Randolph Scott and H.B. Warner lend solid if unexceptional support – but the villainous character of the spiritualist (Allan Dinehart) isn't particularly well-developed, while Beryl Mercer offers the obligatory comic relief as the latter's tipsy landlady (who isn't above spying on and eventually blackmail her boarders!).For all that, the latter stages of the film – involving the séance (highlighted by the 'apparitions' of Lombard's dead twin brother and various other tricks perpetrated by Dinehart to milk his gullible clients) and Lombard's possession (particularly the nice close-ups of her lit eyes) – are reasonably effective. All in all, while I wasn't excessively let down by it, I can only see SUPERNATURAL (I wouldn't mind having it on an official DVD from Universal, either, perhaps as part of a horror collection?) improving with further viewings, and I would certainly like to catch up with the Halperin Brothers' subsequent horror outings – REVOLT OF THE ZOMBIES (1936) and TORTURE SHIP (1939) – even if their reputation is nowhere near as assured as this one's is, let alone WHITE ZOMBIE