Watch The Black Raven For Free

I wanted to but couldn't!

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

A group of strangers are brought together in an old, dark house and must contend with two murders and $50,000 in stolen money.These dark, moody, creepy mysterious movies apparently were the rage back in the early 40s. There are tons of them. Even Abbott & Costello made a couple!This one is no exception. Lots of shadowy things going on. These types of films may have originated from some English live theatre that are still popular to this day in London. Unsure. Even WC Fields has a line in a movie where he turns a picture into a "drawing room drama!" It's a very watchable movie.The down side is that available prints are not so pristine. You can actually see the celluloid warping while you watch!

George Zucco runs a little country inn called the Black Raven. He himself is also known as the Black Raven—a mysterious underworld figure whose services include assistance to those hoping to slip quietly over the nearby border into Canada.He has guests: his former partner has busted out of prison to come and get revenge on him; a gangster on the lam (Noel Madison) wants help getting to Canada; a bank clerk (Byron Foulger) stops on his way to Canada with a briefcase full of money; and an eloping couple (Wanda McKay and Bob Livingston—billed here as Robt. Randall) stop for the night, or at least until the storm lets up. Hot in pursuit is the eloping girl's father, who also happens to be a powerful and shady political figure and a bitter rival of the fleeing gangster. When one of these guests turns up dead and the bag of money goes missing, the Raven has a house full of suspicious characters throwing around accusations and digging around for the money. The action moves along pretty fast and the plot mostly holds together. The dialog is never particularly original but contains a certain amount of dry humor— Foulger: "Oh, dear, how awful. How'd it happen?" Zucco: "Evidently someone didn't like him."Zucco is good and is basically the hero—although we know he operates outside of the law, he takes a certain interest in protecting the young couple in particular. Glenn Strange is the Raven's handyman; it's kind of funny to see him as comic relief, as he shivers at shadows and falls down stairs. Charles Middleton is also essentially a comic figure as the clueless sheriff. (Here he has the authoritative voice but none of the brains of the Emperor Ming.) The cast give enthusiastic performances, the storm effects and lighting create the right atmosphere…it's lots of fun.

Many people have found that most DVD editions of "The Black Raven" to be too dark in places and of overall poor quality. I've found a nice, bright restored version of it on a triple feature DVD called Black & Blue Collection which is available through the Roan Group.com. It's compiled with "Black Dragons" and the most perfect copy of "Bluebeard" that I've ever seen (other DVD's of "Bluebeard" on the market are too grainy, edited or have bad sound). Anyway, "The Black Raven" focuses on a group of people who are trying to get over the Canadian border for different reasons but are forced by a rainstorm and washed-out bridges to spend the night at the shadowy Black Raven Inn. The film has plenty of old dark house atmosphere plus the effective relentless howling of the wind and the pounding of the rain. George Zucco and Wanda McKay give good performances in this intriguing murder mystery. Enjoy it in its most perfect DVD edition. It really makes a difference!

***SPOILERS*** Fate brings six people together one night at the Black Raven Inn thats on the Canadian USA border. The first person who shows up is escaped convict Whitey Cole, I. Stanford Jolly, who has a score to settle with the Inn's owner Bradford, George Zucco. Having been double-crossed by Bradford and losing his half of the Black Raven Inn Cole wants him to pay for his backstabbing but is subdued by Bradford and his handyman at the Inn Andy, Glen Strange, and tied up and held captive in the basement until the police come to arrest him.Soon another customer arrives Mike Bardoni, Noel Madison, a wanted hood who's trying to make it across the border to Canada to escape the law. The next four persons who arrive at the Inn is Horace Weatherby, Bryon Foulger, a bank clerk who just embezzled $50,000.00 from his bank and the couple of Allen Bently, Bob Randell, and his fiancé Lee Winfield, Wanda McCay, who are also trying to elope to Canada to escape Lee's domineering and gangster father Tim Winfield, Robert Middleass. Winfield also arrives at the Inn in order to stop his daughter from going through with her marriage to Allen. Winfield is also the man who brought Bardoni down as a top gang leader in the world of organized crime and you just can imagine what happened when the two men end up in the same room together.Cole unties himself and escapes into the woods as Winfield recognizes Weatherby from his picture in the newspapers as the bank embezzler and gets him to give him the $50,000.00 so, as he tells Weatherby, he'll return it to the police and nothing would happen to him. Earlier in the movie Brdoni noticed the money Weatherby was carrying in a satchel and wanted to take and keep the loot for himself but as it turns out both Winfield & Bardoni end up getting murdered, who did it?"The Black Raven" isn't one of George Zucco's best but it would be watchable only if the lighting in the movie was better. It looked like the movie was filmed in a mineshaft with some scenes so dark that it was impossible to make out who was in them. There was also an attempt of having some humor in the film with a bumbling sheriff, Charlie Middleton, and a cowardly Inn worker Andy. Glen Strange who played Andy is almost twice as big, at six foot seven inches, as anyone in the movie and him being scared to death of every little sound and shadow came across as phony as a three dollar bill. It was left up to Bradford as well the audience, the dopey Sheriff was no help at all, to figure out who the killer or killers were and the ending when he was discovered by Bradford did surprise me.