Really Surprised!

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

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

Wasted opportunity in this musical / comedy / horror / mystery mishmash. Old dark mansion, perched on a cliff over a pounding surf, under thunder and lightning skies, provide the setting for young girl's 21st birthday party. Kay Kyser and his Kollege Of Musical Knowledge provide the entertainment, and is also, sadly, the chief focus of the film. Kyser and band mates seem too old for their slapstick and silly antics. Musical numbers are unmemorable. Plot creeps along, the humor is flat out corny. Rather young and earnest Dennis O'Keefe (future Noir stalwart) is underused. The three main villains, though, really shine. Karloff-Lorre-Lugosi steal every single scene, and effortlessly ooze the sinister, the conniving, the scheming. Worth watching for them alone, though they are not in this enough.

The open to You'll Find Out is the worst part. It begins with Kay Kyser and band doing their radio show. The lame jokes, over-the-top actions of the band, irritating song, and Kyser giving new meaning to the word obnoxious make it hard to sit through. After watching this opening eight or so minutes I imagined I was in for a great deal of pain for the next hour and a half.However, after the unbearable start, it becomes a fun little "old dark house" movie. Don't get me wrong, Kyser and company still try to be funny throughout...and they're not...but it isn't quite as in-your-face as that opening scene. Ish Kabibble is especially lame. Often he reminds me of the snickering dog Muttley on the old Wacky Races cartoon. As a matter of fact, cartoonish is the perfect word to describe the humor in this film .The movie's selling point is not the corny humor, however. It's the horror trio of Karloff, Lugosi, and Lorre in their only outing together. They don't get a lot to do but the movie of course belongs to them anytime they're on screen. Also highly enjoyable was the usage of the cool and creepy Sonovox. Those scenes are some of the movie's highlights.It seems strange to recommend a comedy that isn't funny. But there's enough going on with the mystery and the stranded guests to keep you entertained. It's a fun movie with a good cast. Just prepare to grit your teeth to get through the opening mess.

You'll Find Out (1940) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Kay Kyser and his band are paid to perform at a birthday party but they are stalked by Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi and Peter Lorre. The horror, comedy and musical genres are all mixed together in this decent film that turned out to be a lot better than I was expecting. I had put off viewing this for years because I had heard that Lugosi and Karloff didn't share any scenes together but that turned out to be false because they are together in at least three scenes. Lorre and Lugosi steal the show with some nice comic touches. The film goes on a bit too long at 97 minutes but fans of the three should enjoy themselves.

YOU'LL FIND OUT is strictly a product of the '40s, when a mixture of comedy and horror was standard fare for a Saturday afternoon at the movies. Usually this sort of dark house comedy was left to Abbott and Costello but this time it's band leader Kay Kyser, who was a sort of Spike Jones of his day.It's a gimmicky sort of dark house mystery where most of the action takes place in a "haunted" mansion full of secret panels and passageways, all scary enough to provide the setting for a story about a trio of gangsters (BELA LUGOSI, PETER LORRE and BORIS KARLOFF) scheming to murder a young woman (Helen Parrish) for her father's inheritance, by holding a seance at which her father will appear and frighten her to death--or so they hope.The comedy provided by Kyser and his band (especially Ish Kabibble) is extremely corny and some of the one-liners are creaky enough to turn off the chills, but it's all done in such an innocently good-natured way that it comes off as harmless fun, if only mildly entertaining.David Butler (who co-wrote, produced and directed) obviously had a good time putting this one together. The grand old mansion is a fabulous setting for the scary scenes, there's plenty of thunder and lightning to keep the atmosphere loaded, and all of the performers do their best to keep things spinning along.Handsome DENNIS O'KEEFE shows a good flair for comedy, even if his material is on the weak side, and GINNY SIMMS proves that she was a pleasing enough pop singer with a really good voice and personality.But it's a hit-and-miss sort of film, funny in spots, scary in others, but as cliché-ridden as the old dark house comedies come. Oddly enough, despite the presence of Karloff, Lorre and Lugosi, the creepiest performance in the film is given by ALMA KRUGER as an old gal who likes to communicate with the dead, all the while viewing everyone with an icy stare.