Lester Matthews (Dr Holmes) wanders into a foggy Cornish village and heads to the local inn. He is greeted by a weirdo bartender who runs the inn and does everything with a sack on his head. Matthews learns the story of a headless ghost that wanders around and kills anyone who enters the local tin mine. As a result, no-one goes near the tin mine. Well, the next day, that's exactly where Matthews heads off to. There is definitely someone walking around with no head because we see him. But is he really a ghost? What is going on in this village? It's a whodunit mystery type of film with a helping of horror atmosphere. There is lots of fog and it zips along at a good pace. The story is pretty unconvincing if you think about it. So don't. Just go with it and it carries you along to its conclusion. The film ends up being something different to what it starts out as. Given the year that the film was made, it is no surprise that there is a war element to things.

Mysterious Doctor, The (1943) *** (out of 4) Strange horror/mystery from Warner has a small town living in fear that a headless ghost stalks their fog filled town. Legend has it that the ghost haunts a local tin mine and will kill anyone who goes close. This is a rather unique little film because of what was going on in the real world at the time. We all know that WW2 was going strong and a lot of war talk often made its way into movies but very few horror films had this. That's not the case here as this film features plenty of talk about the war and Hitler, which is used to show that other fears can cause people to hide when they should be out fighting. The actual story isn't all that original but with these added fears it makes for an interesting film. The mystery aspect of the movie also works quite well as the truth behind the legend is never really known. The atmosphere is another bonus as it really comes off and feels like a Universal film from the period. John Loder, Eleanor Parker, Bruce Lester and Lester Matthews turns in good performances in this forgotten gem, which desperately needs to be released to DVD.

This was a truly bizarre little British propaganda film made during the Second World War. It's so odd because it looks initially like a B-movie horror film (with talk about ghosts and headless ghouls walking about), but then unexpectedly becomes an anti-Nazi film about German attempts to destroy tin production in Britain!! Talk about strange plot-twists! However, despite the creativity of the plot, the film has quite a few problems that prevent it from being anything more than a silly time-passer. One problem, and it is relatively minor, is that the whole gimmick of the guy with a hood over his head is just silly. He didn't look all that bad without it and it's frightfully easy to guess what they would do with that character. A much bigger problem is that there really isn't much mystery about the film because it is just way too rushed. The suspense is never given a chance to build and the film makers were obviously too constrained by the unwritten rule that B-movies should be 50-70 minutes long,...period! And in this case, this meant ill-developed plot elements and a way too quickly solved mystery. As a result, the film never really jells into a coherent or memorable film. Nice try, though, but a film that is very skip-able.

(There are Spoilers) Srange combination horror/war movie that has to do with the ghost of Black Morgan a miner who lost his head years ago and has been hunting the deserted Morgan's Head tin mine ever since looking for it. Taking a three week walking tour of Scotland Dr. Fredrick Holmes, Lester Matthews, hitches a ride and is dropped off at the Running Horse Inn owned by a faceless, he 's always wearing a black execution hood, Simon Tewksbury, Frank Mayo, who's head was badly scared in a mining explosionHaving a drink on him for all the patrons in the inn Holmes is later accused by a number of locals of being a spy from the Germans who was secretly parachuted into the area. With the towns top official Sir. Henry Leland, John Loder, dropping in to check on the rumor's of a German fifth columnist in their mist Holmes shows evidence that he's really who he says he is Dr. Fredrick Holmes British citizen and patriot. Later war hero Lt. Kit Hilton, Bruce Lester, just back from the North African campaign drops into town to first see his girlfriend Letty, Eleanor Parker, but also to whip up support for the war effort among the local miners who haven't worked the local tin mine since the war began.The miners are more terrified at working in the Black Morgan Mine then facing Hitler's Whermacht and Luftwaffe in that the headless Back Morgan is haunting the mine and has already killed, by decapitation, some dozen persons who dared to enter it. Kit Hilton wants the miners to overcome their baseless superstitions about Black Morgan and go into the mine to dig up the tin in it thats desperately needed for the war in defeating Hitler. That's saying a lot since Black Morgan is to strike again, this time against both Simon and Holmes, who are foolish enough to enter his hunted mine.With the townspeople now up in arms over the latest killing they single out village idiot Bart Redmond, Matt Willis, as somehow being in league with the headless miner Black Morgan since he's been seen in and around the mine just before Holmes, or was it Simon, was murdered. Captured and then escaping with his life Redmond hides out in the Morgan Mine where Letty, who knows that the big and lovable slub is innocent, secretly brings him food and water. It's on a visit to Bart that Hetty is confronted by the headless Morgan and is rescued by Bart who risking his life bring Hetty back to town where he's almost shot by Kit Hilton but again gets away and escapes back into the mine.Hetty later that night is contacted by the fugitive Bart who urges her to come with him back to Morgan's Mine in that he found out what's really behind all these headless killings. As Bart takes Hetty back to the Morgan Mine he leads her to this secret room thats hidden deep in the mine-shaft that reveals what's really behind all these "Headless Miner" stories and it doesn't at all have to do with the headless miner!Typical WWII propaganda flick that has to do with the enemy within, not without, and for once didn't depict the Nazis as the helpless and comical buffoons as were used to seeing them in movies like this but as very dangerous and conning adversaries as they were in real life. At the end of the movie with the secret of the headless Black Morgan reviled as a Nazi plot to disrupt the war British effort, by preventing the tin from being mined, we see dozens of Morgan's Head citizens proudly marching to work to mine the tin that will in the end bring Hitler's war machine to a halt and singing patriotic and feel-good songs, like "Whistle while we Work", as their doing it.