Alex da Silva 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.

MARIO GAUCI I cannot say I was aware of this one before our own Michael Elliott gave it a thumbs up not that long ago; actually emerging as only borderline horror, it effectively mingles a traditional plot – an English village, complete with hulking idiot and disfigured bartender hiding his features behind a hood(!), lives in fear of an ancient curse involving a headless ghost – with topical (i.e. WWII) concerns. The village mine was being utilized to produce tin for the Allied cause so the Axis powers apparently felt the need to send out one of their own to intermingle in the community and recreate by night the legend of The Headless Ghost, thus curtailing the mining operations which are subsequently abandoned. The prerequisite foggy atmosphere is thickly laid on, the plot is fairly engaging and the modest but pleasing cast – squire John Loder, the lovely Eleanor Parker, title character Lester Matthews, dim-witted Matt Willis, etc. – is sympathetic to the material at hand. Besides, being a compact 57-minute 'B' flick, it is essentially comparable in quality and effect to the likes of Fox's DR. RENAULT'S SECRET and THE UNDYING MONSTER (both 1942).

sol (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.

telegonus This not perhaps one of the great films but is yet the umpteenth example of how a well-made and nicely acted picture can work wonders even without a particularly outstanding script. A doctor on a walking tour in foggy Cornwall finds himself at a village inn. He has to knock hard to get someone to open the door, and when it does open he is greeted by a man with a black hood over his head. Once inside the stranger meets the customers at the bar, who are the usual dour, sullen, somewhat eccentric British types moviegoers are familiar with thanks to such lively and observant directors as James Whale. Whether such characters have ever existed in the real world is of course irrelevant. The actors are British enough, and the setting sufficiently evocative to satisfy even the most finicky moviegoer. We are in Hollywood's England of the forties, when Brittania ruled with an authority and prestige not seen since, and when dry ice fog and mists suggested a quaint and cozy never-never Albion out of Dickens and Doyle almost as well as the authors themselves had done. One of locals tells the doctor the tale of the headless ghost of Black Morgan, which many believe to still be haunting the village and local mine. For a while, due to the exceptionally suspenseful build-up and clever art direction, one might have expected a werewolf or two to show up before the picture ended. This alas does not happen, and the film, though satisfying in its way, never fulfills the promise of its early, expository scenes.What follows is a mystery, reasonably well done, highly unoriginal, and unworthy of the actors and set designers, who deserved better for their sterling efforts. This film is highly recommended for its atmosphere, though as a story it contains few surprises. Director Ben Stoloff does a commendable job in the dramatic scenes, and has a feel for the nuances of mood in terms of psychology and setting, as the two interact well and properly, as they always should. Leading lady Eleanor Parker handles her generic role quite well and comes close to being convincingly British without any excessive mannerisms. John Loder is decent as the local 'Sir', and the various supporting players are credible if predictable in their routines. Lester Matthews makes a fine Dr. Holmes, and plays his part with an authority and empathy one does not expect in an English actor at this time and in this sort of film. Matt Willis is excellent as the chief suspect. He was always a fine actor, and was never given the parts he deserved in his brief film career. In what one might call the Laird Cregar (or Vincent Price) role he is in his very different way as good as they were, and far more natural. The film's final scenes are badly dated, but overall this is as finely polished a B gem as one can find, and might have been a masterpiece of its kind with a better screenplay.Technically it is a virtuoso piece, suggesting at times Hitchcock, at other times Lang; there's a touch of Val Lewton in the sensitive use of second-hand sets; in its locale, concluding scene and one of its leading actors it is strangely reminiscent of Ford's How Green Was My Valley; and early on it feels like a horror film. Not a bad showing for a little under sixty minutes running time.