Review of The Hidden Room

Robert Newton (whom I remember from Disney' "Treasure Island") is the one with the obsession. He is a psychologist whose wife (a real minx) has been having a series of affairs with young men. He finally reaches the end of his rope and decides to kill the next one. He happens to be a young American playboy who, unfortunately, is the one. Newton locks him in a room, hidden away, not far from his garage. He visits him frequently. He has him chained and bolted to the wall and has marked an arc, representing the distance he can go from his cot. Every day he goes into a bathroom with a water bottle full of what appears to be acid. The idea is to torment the guy and then kill him, later using the acid to consume the body and send it down the drain. Bill Conin, the victim, is glib and manages to keep his spirits up. While his disappearance at first is big news, he is soon relegated to the back pages, and, after three months, there is no mention of him. That is until Newton gets his wife's ire up by disposing of her dog (actually, he wants to use the dog to test the acid), but Bill gets hold of the dog and keeps him behind his arc. Now she is willing to go to Scotland yard and complain, and a series of questions occur and a superintendent gets involved. He's sort of a prototype of Columbo, always asking one more question.

The acting is splendid. None of the people here are very admirable. Newton is fixated on the "perfect" murder. The wife is just as bad as Newton figured, and her paramour has few redeeming qualities (not that he deserved his fate). The suspense builds nicely with dark images. The language is delightful, especially the visits to the hidden room when the threat of death lingers in the air. A really fine film.