Reviews & Ratings for
Candles at Nine More at IMDbPro »

4 out of 7 people found the following review useful:
Mass Exits At Nine Fifteen, 11 March 2007

Author: writers_reign from London, England

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Oh dear! This is one that will appeal only to the most ardent Matthews fan. What possessed anyone to contemplate another Wicked Housekeeper movie crossed with the Conditional Will in which a heroine inherits a fortune BUT ONLY if she stays for one month in The Old Dark House that comes complete with its own Mrs Danvers, here phoned in by Beatrix Lehman (presumably Gale Sondergaard and Judith Anderson were playing two of the witches in a Road Company Macbeth) is anyone's guess. The film suffers from terminal sloppiness; made and presumably set in the middle of the Second World War it makes virtually no reference to shortages and ordinary people think nothing of driving to and from the country at a time when a major celebrity, Ivor Novello, was imprisoned for doing the same thing and Jesse Matthews is portrayed as an ordinary working girl yet one who lives in a lavish, beautifully appointed flat; for no apparent reason the hero figure, ostensibly employed as a Turf Commissioner, takes it upon himself to 'protect' Matthews yet never reveals just how he knew that the butler, Grimes, was planning to shoot her (or where a butler would get a gun, for that matter) and when he himself is knocked out by Grimes and left trussed in a locked room by butler and housekeeper neither he nor Matthews mention this when, having been freed by Matthews who took an axe to the door unmolested by Lehman, they meet Lehman at breakfast. Okay, it was wartime and audiences weren't too choosy, but this really won't do.

3 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
Appropriate Title For A Faded Star., 25 February 2007

Author: Richard from Australia

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

OK, I'll admit straight up that I've been a huge fan of Jessie Matthews ever since I first saw her in "First A Girl", but unfortunately I can't give this film the greatest of reviews. It is undeniably cute and has a number of amusing scenes, but when the end arrives you feel that they could have included so much more. The director seems to have been content to provide the movie with a single dramatic moment, whereas the viewer would have expected at least a few. Jessie gives her usual top performance - the scene where she is drunk in the restaurant is particularly funny - but some of her charm and beauty has started to disappear by this stage. It is telling that this movie sits outside her fabulous run of films by several years(those that she made between 1931 and 1938), and I would not recommend it as a first viewing for someone unfamiliar with her work. If you are simply a fan of the period then you may enjoy it, as the rest of the cast put in fine performances. Be warned: this movie has recently been released on DVD (end of 2006) but it is not a good transfer. It has been lifted from video tape by the look of it, and burnt on a home recorder.

0 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
Flickering Flame, 5 January 2012

Author: bkoganbing from Buffalo, New York

If you're an ardent Jessie Matthews fan you will like Candles At Nine because Jessie does get to do one song and dance number. But other than that this is one very confused film. It seems like it might have started out as a satire on these inheritance murder stories, but got lost on the way.

As is typical in these stories old Elliot Makeham has gathered his closest relatives for a reading of a rather sarcastic will. After putting them all down including his Mrs. Danvers like housekeeper Beatrice Lehman and butler John Salew, Makeham reads that the fortune which he acquired through some shady means is going to a young performer played by Jessie Matthews who is not present. Later that night Makeham is killed during a false alarm panic over a supposed fire.

But for Matthews to inherit everything she has to stay in the creepy old house with the creepy old staff for a month. Why do people write such nonsense in wills? Still that allows Lehman and Salew to do their dirty work.

Candle At Nine is one confused film that should have stuck to being a murder mystery or gone for broader satire. As it is it's not that good in either genre.

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