You'll Find Out (1940)

[Dave Monroe]

You'll Find Out (1940)

Genre: Comedy / Horror / Musical / Mystery

Tagline: A Mystery with Music

Kay Kyser	.... 	Kay Kyser
Peter Lorre	.... 	Professor Karl Fenninger
Boris Karloff	.... 	Judge Spencer Mainwaring
Bela Lugosi	.... 	Prince Saliano ...

http://imdb.com/title/tt0033283/

It's hard to imagine what moviegoers today would make
of Kay Kyser and his Kollege of Musical Knowledge, but
during the late thirties and early forties the big
band conductor was one of the most popular
entertainers in America. Thanks to the medium of radio
(which was at the height of its popularity during the
WWII era), Kyser built up a huge fan base through his
novelty act, a winning combination of music, humor and
"kollege brainbuster questions" with a cash prize for
the winner. Sporting wire-rim glasses, mortarboard and
academic gown, Kyser created an eccentric bookworm
persona for himself and surrounded himself with
equally outlandish "colleagues," one of the more
famous being Ish Kabibble. It was only a matter of
time before Kyser took his act to Hollywood and, in
1939, RKO produced his first film, That's Right,
You're Wrong. Its success lead to a more ambitious
second feature, You'll Find Out (1940), which paired
the bandleader with the triple threat team of Boris
Karloff, Bela Lugosi and Peter Lorre.

At the time, self-parody was not a quality associated
with the horror genre - that would occur later with
the arrival of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
in 1948 - so it was rather unusual to see Karloff,
Lugosi and Lorre spoofing their on-screen personas in
You'll Find Out. The film's model was The Old Dark
House (1932), James Whale's archetypal haunted house
film, but this time all of the cliches (secret
passageways, seances, thunderstorms) were played for
laughs, and the film's success obviously inspired
numerous imitations over the coming years such as the
Bob Hope vehicle, The Ghost Breakers (1940) and Scared
Stiff (1953) starring Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin....

http://www.tcm.com/thismonth/article.jsp?cid=82791&mainArticleId=139119

You'll Find Out
1940-USA-Parody/Spoof/Satire/Horror Comedy
N.Y. Times Review by Bosley Crowther

PLOT DESCRIPTION
Considering that it contains the one and only
cinematic group appearance by Boris Karloff, Peter
Lorre and Bela Lugosi, You'll Find Out must rank as
one of the most lamentable missed opportunities in
movie history....

http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=55931

THE SCREEN; Kay Kyser at the Roxy--'Kit Carson' at
Loew's State--New Films at the Rialto and Palace

By BOSLEY CROWTHER
Published: November 15, 1940 ...

http://movies2.nytimes.com/mem/movies/review.html?title1=You%27ll%20Find%20Out&title2=&reviewer=BOSLEY%20CROWTHER&pdate=19401115&v_id=55931

If you ask classic horror fans if Boris Karloff, Bela
Lugosi, and Peter Lorre ever appeared in a movie
together, many would probably answer in the negative
or at least say they don't know.  Yet, these three
film fiends did perform a tag team together in a flick
that featured one of the most popular band leaders of
the time.  Ironically, the likely reason this film is
not better known or regarded is because it features
that same band leader....

http://www.horror-wood.com/findout.htm

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