The Bat (1959): This fourth film version of the Mary Roberts Rinehart-Avery Hopwood stage chestnut. Agnes Moorehead plays mystery novelist Cornelia Van Gorder, whose remote mansion is the scene for all sorts of diabolical goings-on. The "maguffin" is a million dollars' worth of securities, hidden away somewhere in the huge and foreboding estate.

House on Haunted Hill (1958): A perennial favorite of the "Shock Theatre" TV circuit, House on Haunted Hill stars Vincent Price as a sinister gent (you're surprised?) who owns a sinister mansion on a sinister hill. He offers several of his enemies $10,000 each—if they agree to spend the night in the crumbling old mansion.