“Tomorrow at Seven” (1933) / Z-View

Tomorrow at Seven (1933)

Director:  Ray Enright

Screenplay: Ralph Spence

Stars: Chester Morris, Vivienne Osborne, Frank McHugh, Allen Jenkins, Henry Stephenson, Grant Mitchell and Charles Middleton

Tagline: HELPLESS TO DEFEND HER! The girl he loved death-marked by the unknown fiend who killed at the stoke of seven.

The Plot…

A serial killer who calls himself The Black Ace is set to murder again.  Before each murder The Black Ace sends his target a large black ace card with a message warning that he will be next!   After each kill, a black ace playing card is left on the victim’s chest. Thornton Drake (Stephenson) received a black ace with the warning, “Tomorrow at Seven“.

Thornton, his daughter Martha (Osborne), her new boyfriend Neil (Morris), along with two plainclothes detectives Clancy (McHugh) and Dugan (Jenkins), and two pilots fly to a home Thornton owns out of state.  They figure they’ll be safe there.  They figured wrong.  Now the group  have taken refuge in Thornton’s big, old house.  Someone has cut the phone lines… and it’s getting close to 7!

Thoughts (beware of spoilers)…

Tomorrow at 7 has the feel of a play.  Clancy and Dugan provide comic relief.  If Barney Fife had twin brothers, it’d be these guys.  Movies like Tomorrow at 7 were popular around this time period.  All you need is a killer, a remote house with plenty of rooms (and a secret passage or two), a group of potential victims and a character for laughs to break the tension and you’re good to go.  If like me, you like these types of films, you should enjoy Tomorrow at 7.  Be aware that the final kill reminded me of Enter the Dragon, which was surprising for a film made in the 1930s.

Tomorrow at Seven earns 3 of 5 stars.