Crooked Circle (DVD)

The Crooked Circle of Criminal Masterminds meet at midnight and perform sinister rites of pagan anarchy. They pledge "to do for each other, to defend any brother - a fight to the knife and a knife to the hilt." The Crooked Circle is under attack from the anti-crime Sphinx Club and they target Sphinx ringleader Colonel Wolter for execution.

Both factions arrive at Melody Manor, a mysterious haunted house, "as old as the hills and as isolated as an igloo." With weird Swami Yoganda (C. Henry Gordon) lurking and a deformed hunchback butler Harmon (Raymond Hatton) sneaking around, it's not just the restless spirits of Melody Manor that The Crooked Circle must fear.

Zasu Pitts (star of Erich von Stroheim's classics Greed, 1924 and The Wedding March, 1928) had been relegated to comic roles by the advent of talkies. She shines in her role as Nora in The Crooked Circle.

• mystery