Review of Pillow of Death

I said in another review that I reserve one star for movies so awful I couldn't finish watching them, but I have to make an exception for Pillow of Death. Spoiler alert, please do not read this review if you have not watched the movie because I am going to describe the ending, so you are warned. This movie sets up the viewer to cheer for Lon Chaney's lawyer character as well as his secretary, after he is accused of murdering his wife. The police in this movie seem obsessed with arresting and charging people with murder for almost no reason at all, and then immediately releasing them for lack of evidence, raising the obvious question of why they were arrested in the first place. Anyway, other murders follow, and the viewer is led to believe that someone is trying to frame Lon Chaney. An especially obnoxious, annoying, stupid jerk of a guy keeps popping up and sneaking around and trying to get Chaney's secretary romantically interested in him, and she constantly tells him to get lost. I thought maybe this jerk was a "red herring," then after a while I thought maybe he was actually the murderer. My prime suspect was the fake medium, who also seemed intensely interested in using his supernatural hocus-pocus to prove Chaney guilty. Near the end of the movie I was sure of three things. One, Chaney was innocent. Two, Chaney and his secretary would wind up happily together. Three, the real murderer would at last be exposed (along with superstition), and justice would prevail. In case you missed my earlier warning, stop reading now unless you have seen the movie, spoiler ahead. I was wrong. In one of the most absurd endings to a "murder mystery" I have ever seen, Chaney turns out to be not only guilty, but also a raving lunatic. That's right, his only motive is that he is insane. And if that were not enough, his secretary, who seemed to love him and believe in him, immediately winds up with the stupid annoying little jerk who has chased her and enraged her. Give me a break. Now I know why that weird guy who was the talking Inner Sanctum head in the first five was absent from this one -- he was embarrassed to be associated with it! One star, but my actual rating would be about minus 100.