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For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Everybody seems desperate to get their hands on a priceless Indian gem bequested to the heroine, a young British lady (Phyllis Barry) who has no idea that her father is in debt and that a ton of people covet her newly gotten gain. Rumors of a curse on the jewel run rampant, and an early attempt to steal it fails thanks to the quick thinking of the hatchet faced housekeeper who adores Barry.Pretty lavish by Monogram standards, this creaks along, but that adds atmosphere to the spooky story. David Manners, the young hero of "Dracula" and "The Black Cat", adds another portrait of youthful innocence tossed up against unspeakable evils, while Elspeth Dudgeon (who played a man in "The Old Dark House" and a ghoul in "Shh! The Octopus!") is feisty and lovable as a rare switch in the usually sinister portrait of the housekeeper. She's a delightful old ham who knows how to steal a scene with either a sneer or a sniff, and gets the script's funniest lines. Gustav von Seyffertitz (the psychiatrist from "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town"), with that dark and sinister accent, is a top suspect along with a turban wearing Hindu (John Davidson) who claims to have switched to Christianity.Delightfully short and intriguing, this is another variation of a similar theme that went back well to the silent era and is occasionally parodied to this day. Some DVD prints run 15 minutes less than the full version, and even those ones aren't missing anything that would give the audience more clues.

The only similarity I see between this and its namesake is the jewel. The rest is a pretty typical drawing room mystery. It has a pretty decent set of eccentric characters, a love interest, a man in a turban (very exotic, right), and a lot of shenanigans. The carelessness with which the stone, worth a fortune, is treated stops me. The female lead is totally unappealing. She is so dumb that I couldn't care less what happens to her. Her fiancé is a big lunk with no real character. There is some atmosphere of the mansion in the rain. The lights go out and there is a bit of a surprise. Overall, however, it lacks much development and ends in a rather far fetched way.

The story is a slightly updated story of the legendary Moonstone gem coming into the possession of a young girl and then disappearing as thieves and assorted others try to make off with it.The two prints that I've seen of this movie run only 45 minutes, so I'm not certain what the full running time is, or was, but film while seeming rushed at the end, seems to have everything in it. But the biggest problem is that it is rushed. After almost a half a hour of slow building set up the gem disappears and it races through to the end as a police procedural to find the culprit.The performances are very good and they make watching this brief mystery fun to watch. Definitely worth your time - especially if you're pressed for time. (If you come across the Alpha Video version pick it up since its paired with the equally good Murder at Midnight)

Veteran director Reginald Barker -- whose career included several superior William S. Hart Westerns and Thomas Ince's landmark CIVILIZATION -- directed this near the end of his career and he tells the story with a fluid camera and many visual grace notes. Unhappily, the dialogue is not up to the camerawork, but this first sound version of Wilkie Collins' classic mystery is well produced and well worth your time.