PILLOW OF DEATH: the horror, the horror.......

PILLOW OF DEATH could have been the kiss of death for a less resilient actor. But not Lon Chaney jr. He'd survived many low budget horrors by the time he churned this one out in 1945 and he'd survive many more in the future.
PILLOW OF DEATH isn't actually a horror movie but it is horrifically bad. The kind of film that's so bad it can put a serious dent in an actor's reputation if they have one to dent. Which is where Chaney was lucky. He'd already made five of these Inner Sanctum cheapies in very quick succession by the time the cameras rolled on this final installment so expectations were pretty low all around.
The studio had clearly run out of enthusiasm and inspiration by this point - they'd even given up on the distorted head in a glass bowl introducing the story - and there's an obvious lack of commitment by everyone involved. The script is beyond ridiculous in its contrived implausibility, and no one in the cast seems able to summon up the energy to even try to give their best.
Chaney moves in slow motion for much of the story, failing to react as any normal human being would to the sight of his murdered wife, or a scream in the night, or the discovery that his dead wife's body is now missing from her coffin. He even has trouble finding the second floor in the big old house when he's on the first floor and standing directly in front of the staircase.
Brenda Joyce as his love interest is so cold and unaffectionate that I was amazed to discover she wasn't the murderer, and it's a little sad to see Dorothy's Auntie Em from 'The Wizard of Oz' - veteran actress Clara Blandick - in the thankless role of a harridan aunt whose sole purpose is to be smothered by the titular pillow.
On the plus side, much of the slow moving action takes place in a sumptuously designed and decorated grand old house set obviously built for a more prestigious production recently shot on the Universal lot. It's the only classy element in the entire film.

CALLING DR DEATH: tiny cop cracks the case

This first entry in a series of six low budget 'Inner Sanctum' thrillers shot by Universal in the mid 40s is notable chiefly for the whispered inner dialogue going on inside the head of the protagonist, Dr Mark Steel. It's almost as if he doesn't want to disturb himself by having his inner voice speak out loud, but disturbed is what he is nonetheless.
The good doc (Lon Chaney Jr) is married to an unfaithful wife (Ramsay Ames) who won't give him a divorce because she likes the good life and social standing that comes with being the wife of a prominent neurologist. When she's found brutally murdered and the doc can't remember where he was on the day it happened, he turns to his loyal nurse and secretary Stella (the beautiful Patricia Morison) to save him from the electric chair.
Ignoring the misleading title (no-one ever calls Dr Steel Dr Death) the plot succeeds in staying just this side of plausibility (unlike some later entries in the series) and masks the killer's true identity for long enough to hold our interest. There's some obvious red herrings, most notably the repeated interjections of Inspector Gregg (J.Carroll Naish) who pops up in almost every scene to make ludicrous accusations which threaten to push the good doctor over the edge.
Naish plays the part as if he's Joseph Calleia but can't quite pull off the oily-suave smoothness or air of slightly exotic mystery he's reaching for. Part of the reason for this is his obvious lack of height. It's almost a cliche that many actors are actually considerably smaller than they appear on screen, but Naish looks tiny even with the help of the camera. Chaney is unlikely leading man material but that doesn't really matter when the actresses surrounding him (Morison, Ames) are so bad they couldn't convincingly exude love playing opposite Clark Gable in his prime.
CALLING DR DEATH was never designed to be high art. It's a 62 minute B-movie intended for the bottom half of a double bill and it suits its purpose very well. Switch brain to off-position, sit back and enjoy.

DEAD MAN'S EYES: spanning the acting range from A to B (awful to brilliant)

It's difficult to imagine Lon Chaney Jr being the object of one woman's affections let alone two but - hey - this is Hollywood and Hollywood's stock in trade is fantasy. Which is how the beefy B-actor finds himself at the centre of a love triangle which leads to murder and eyeball removal.
DEAD MAN'S EYES from 1944 was one of a short series of hour long big screen adaptations made by Universal of the popular 'Inner Sanctum' radio show.
Chaney stars as David Stuart, an aspiring artist on the brink of success who accidentally blinds himself when he washes his eyes with acid rather than the bottle of eyewash which is on the shelf next to the bottle of acid. Some might describe that as an accident waiting to happen, but his sultry model Tanya blames herself for moving the 2 bottles while searching for a tissue. Tanya's also in love with David but he only has eyes for Heather (Jean Parker), the daughter of Dad Hayden, a wealthy man who treats David like an adopted son. Heather's the recipient of unwanted attention from Nick Philips, a drunken playboy, while Tanya's being pursued by Alan Bittaker (Paul Kelly) who's a psychiatrist and David's best friend. Shortly after Heather's father promises to donate his eyes to David when he dies he's found bludgeoned to death with David standing over him, blood on his hands. But did the blind man do it - or was it Tanya or Nick or even Dr Bittaker?
All of this and more is crammed into the story's very short running time and it helps to have a flowchart handy to keep track of who might have done what to who and why.
The plot's too convoluted to guess with any accuracy at the identity of the murderer so the real fun's to be had in watching the exotically named Acquanetta (born Mildred Davenport) as the olive skinned and mysterious Tanya. Her nationality is never mentioned and she doesn't have an accent but she looks foreign enough for the other characters to patronisingly refer to her as "a pretty thing" and other descriptors which indicate she's not one of us. They'd have been on less controversial ground commenting on her severely limited acting abilities. She delivers each line as if she's seeing it for the first written on a cue card held just out of camera range. Her apparent unfamiliarity with her own dialogue means it's all recited with a complete lack of emotion or inflection. She's at her best when she keeps her mouth closed and just stands there looking sultry. And if that sounds patronising, well, it's also the truth.
At the other end of the acting scale is the wonderful Thomas Gomez as Captain Drury, the cop with the thankless task of figuring out who did in Heather's dad. Gomez was a character actor of the 40s and 50s who brought class and credibility to whatever film he played in, and here he's considerably better than both his fellow cast members and the material he's given to work with. 
His performance alone is worth the investment of an hour of your time. Acquanetta's is an unexpected but delightful bonus.