| Return of the Terror | |
| Director: | Howard Bretherton |
| Producer: | Samuel Bischoff |
| Screenplay: | Peter Milne Eugene Solow |
| Based On: | The Terror (1927 play) by Edgar Wallace[1] |
| Starring: | Mary Astor Lyle Talbot John Halliday Frank McHugh |
| Music: | Bernhard Kaun |
| Cinematography: | Arthur L. Todd |
| Editing: | Owen Marks |
| Studio: | First National Pictures |
| Distributor: | Warner Bros. |
| Runtime: | 65 minutes |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
Return of the Terror is a 1934 American mystery film directed by Howard Bretherton and written by Peter Milne and Eugene Solow. The film stars Mary Astor, Lyle Talbot, John Halliday, and Frank McHugh, and features Robert Barrat and Irving Pichel. The film was released by Warner Bros. on July 7, 1934.[2] [3] It was a loose remake of the 1928 film The Terror, based on Edgar Wallace's play of the same name, rather than a sequel.[4] It shifted the setting from England to America.
Doctor John Redmayne, on trial for the death of four patients at the sanatorium he ran and branded "The Terror" by the press, claims insanity on the advice of his lawyer and is sent to the lunatic asylum. Six months later, fearing he really is going mad, he escapes and returns to his sanatorium. There he encounters again his former lover Olga and his colleague Doctor Goodman, who may have had a hand in the original deaths.
A.D.S. of The New York Times said, "The Return of the Terror has been managed with the usual Hollywood skill in the physical properties, but its structure has a carpentered look. As the suspicious reporter, Frank McHugh creates a few laughs, but the writing is strictly routine and the necessary humor is largely absent. Robert Emmett O'Connor is excellent as a hard-boiled detective, and the other principals, John Halliday, Mary Astor, Lyle Talbot and Robert Barrat, are entirely satisfactory."[5]
A 35mm print has been preserved by the Library of Congress,[6] and a 16mm[7] print of this film survives at the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research. It was transferred onto 16mm film by Associated Artists Productions[8] in the 1950s and shown on television.