The dominant matron of a wealthy southern family prevents her daughter Rachel (Karen Morley) from running off with the man (Robert Wilcox) she has secretly married. There's an argument; there's a struggle for a revolver; the girl's father is accidentally killed; the groom flees and the girl is stuck—to spend the next many years alone in the decaying mansion with her mother, her two bitter brothers, and a butler whose devotion to the mother runs dark and deep. So begins The Unknown—in a lengthy introductory scene narrated years later in ghostly tones by the finally deceased mother.Jumping to the present day, we see Jim Bannon and Barton Yarborough arriving on the scene with another young woman—Jeff Donnell as Nita, the now grown daughter of the cruelly separated couple of the opening scene. Bannon and Yarborough are, of course, Jack Packard and Doc Long, back for a third and final appearance as the detectives from I Love a Mystery.The mystery this time around involves strange baby cries from behind the walls, the unbalanced Rachel (played by a sufficiently disturbed Morley), a family crypt and house full of busy secret passages, and our detectives' efforts to present Nita as a legitimate heir to the place—efforts that are quickly expanded to include keeping her safe and sane.The suspense develops nicely; the atmosphere crawls with sinister shadows and inscrutable, furtive glances and creepy noises; suspicion is cast cleverly over an assortment of possible villains.Short and sweet, The Unknown is hardly nightmare-inducing, but it's certainly a fast-moving and entertaining little picture. –Call me a sucker, but I'll admit to goose bumps running up my spine in at least one scene.

Unknown, The (1946) ** (out of 4)The third and final film in Columbia's short-lived "I Love a Mystery" series. This time out Jack (Jim Bannon) and Doc (Barton Yarborough) travel to the South with a woman who claims to be the granddaughter of a woman who recently died. The will is about to be read and those who were expecting more money aren't too thrilled with the new family member and soon they're trying to uncover a secret from the past. Having now seen all three entries in this series I can easily say this is a major step up from the second film (THE DEVIL'S MASK) but not quite as good as the first (I LOVE A MYSTERY). I think this films biggest flaw is that there's simply way too much story and too many mysteries trying to be solved. The film starts off with a good ten-minute prologue that sets up various things that are going to happen throughout the film. I thought the opening was handled very well but the rest of the film didn't really build on it. Once in the present day it takes way too long for all the characters to be introduced and in the end the mystery just has too much fluff and not enough interesting things. Both Bannon and Yarborough slide into their roles quite nicely, although I'm sure there are going to be some that won't enjoy their brand of "comedy" so to speak. The real star is is Karen Morley who even manages to get the top billing. I thought she delivered a fine performance and really made her character quite interesting. The film's Southern settings are actually pretty good and we're really given a dark and Gothic look in this old mansion. There are many horror trappings mixed in with the comedy and drama but in the end THE UNKNOWN simply doesn't have strong enough of a screenplay to make everything work.

(Spoilers) In this the third and last of the "I Love a Mystery" movies no one ends up losing their head like in the two previous one's, "The Decapitation of Jefferson Monk" and "The Devil's Mask", but we do have Rachel Martin, Karen Morley, lose her mind in it.Rachel was secretly married to Richard Aronld, Robert Wilcox, which had her outraged father Capt. Selby Martin, Boyd Davis, throw a fit when he found out about it! With Selby pulling out his revolver he and Richard struggled until it went off and blew the captain away. That if anything annulled the marriage between Richard & Rachal with him being accused by the dead captain's wife Phoebe, Helen Freeman, of murdering him! Now 20 years later there's a will to be read to the surviving Martin clan in what Phoebe, who passed away the week before, wants to be done with the Martin Mansion, and everything thats goes along with it, in the Kentucky Blue Grass country.It's when private eyes Jack Packard and Doc Long, Jim Bannon & Barton Yarborough, are hired by this mysterious Adam Franklin to see that the mentally challenged Rachel Martin's 20 year old daughter that she had with the on the lamb Richard Arnold Nina, Jeff Donnell, gets her share of the Martin fortune. That has Phoebe's two reclusive sons Eddie & Ralphie,James Bell & Wilton Graff, go on the warpath in them wanting the mansion and everything in it including Joshua the butler, played by J. Louis Johnson, all for themselves!Things get really complicated later on when Phoebe's last will & testament that to be read the next morning is somehow lost from the Martin family lawyer's Reed Cawthorne, Mark Roberts, briefcase! The biggest surprise of all is the unexpected arrival of Richard Arnold, whom Phoebe Martin hated like poison, showing up for the reading at the late Phoebe's written request! ***SPOILERS*** Someone out there in Blue Grass country doesn't want Phoebe's lost will to be found or read in that whoever he or she is wants to keep things the way there were all these years. And with both Nina and her estranged father Richard, who was lost at sea for the last 20 years, about to get part of the Martin estate that person was willing to go so far as murder! In he or she keeping them from getting anything that Phoebe was to leave to them in her will! It's no big surprise who this mystery man really is and by the time he's exposed by Jack Packard & Doc Long you just about lost interest, together with the cast of characters that's in it, in the movie. That's unless your willing to suffer through the films final torturous confusing and not making any kind of sense at all ten minutes!

Although there's a little too much Southern exposition to set the stage for a present day story, THE UNKNOWN is a better than average programmer in the Columbia studio's "I Love A Mystery" series. Getting to the heart of the story takes up too much time at the start, but once the story starts dealing with the mysterious things going on in an old Southern mansion, it keeps building interest until the mystery is solved.The cast is an interesting one, even though there are hardly any big names involved. KAREN MORLEY is the troubled woman on the brink of madness, ROBERT WILCOX is her lover who has been banished from the grounds, JIM BANNON is Jack Packard, the detective, and BARTON YARBOROUGH is again his partner. JEFF DONNELL is the lady who stands to win an inheritance and MARK ROBERTS is the young lawyer designated to read the will.All of it is directed in nimble style by Henry Levin, an old hand at these sort of programmers and, despite the low budget, given some handsome settings.Summing up: Gets off to a slow start but gradually builds interest.