A woman (Eve Miller) meets an older man while traveling on a train. The stranger, who introduces himself as Dr. Velonius, seems to be able to see into the future, and relates a forboding tale of a man who kills a woman at a railroad station.

Inner Sanctum is a  little-known film noir  directed by Lew Landers (The Return of the Vampire, Crime, Inc., Jungle Jim in the Forbidden Land, Terry and the Pirates, Tales of the Texas Rangers), and stars Charles Russell stars as Harold Dunlap, the brooding killer. Russell should be familiar to Old Time Radio fans as radio’s original star of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar (excluding the Dick Powell audition).

The storytelling clairvoyant, Dr. Velonius, is played by Fritz Leiber, Sr. Leiber worked in dozens of films from 1916 to 1950 including A Tale of Two Cities, Samson and Delilah, The Song of Bernadette, Phantom of the Opera, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. His son Fritz Leiber, Jr. is a popular science-fiction author.

Released in 1948, Inner Sanctum is loosely based on Inner Sanctum Mysteries magazine, a long-running radio show and a Lon Chaney, Jr. movie series of the same name. Beyond the macabre tale told in the film, it bears little resemblance to any of them. Some OTR aficionados may be reminded of The Mysterious Traveler, an old-time radio series featuring an unnamed man on a train unnerving his fellow travelers with gruesome tales of death.

Charles Russell as Harold Dunlap
Mary Beth Hughes as Jean Maxwell
Dale Belding as Mike Bennett
Billy House as McFee
Fritz Leiber as Doctor Valonius, the Seer
Nana Bryant as Thelma Mitchell
Lee Patrick as Ruth Bennett
Roscoe Ates as Willy
Eddie Parks as Barney
Eve Miller as Marie Kembar, Dunlap’s Fiancée

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Film Noir Classic Collection, Volume Two (Born to Kill / Clash by Night / Crossfire / Dillinger (1945) / The Narrow Margin (1952))FILM NOIR CLASSIC COLLECTION VOL 2 - DVD Movie

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