User Reviews

This film is a neat little mystery. Its a well made Hollywood entertainment that uses every trick you can think of to draw you in and hold your attention.

The plot has a wealthy doctor killing his wife and framing a neighbor for the crime. We know he did it and we watch as he sets everything up for the frame to work (as has been aptly pointed out like an episode of Columbo). Coming to investigate is police detective Victor McLaglen and his friend and frequent rival Edmund Lowe who is a reporter. The pair at first think things are clear cut but soon Lowe, thanks to the dead man's sister, begins to see they made a terrible mistake.

Good mystery is lifted up a couple of notches thanks to the two leads whose constant bickering and friendly kidding add to the proceedings. Honestly the pair is what makes this film a must see. The film is nothing is not a precursor to todays buddy films.

A film to search out.

Generally speaking, it's true that film noir is most often associated with crime. But not all—indeed not even the majority—of police and detective dramas can justifiably be classified as noir (even though DVD distributors assume this is invariably the case). Take a movie like Guilty as Hell (1932), which certainly has a noirish title and a most promising poster. It starts off intriguingly too. In fact the opening sequence in which nice old Henry Stephenson (of all people) not only calmly murders his wife but then methodically arranges the evidence to convict her lover instead, is one of the most chillingly noirish I've ever seen. After this episode, however, the movie not only reverts with a vengeance to the original stage play, but becomes somewhat static, somewhat more conventional and somewhat less interesting.

The stage play, Riddle Me This by Daniel N. Rubin opened on Broadway at the John Golden on February 25, 1932 and ran a most satisfactory 100 performances. Frank Craven both directed and starred as Kirk, Robert Burton was Duffy, Robert Lowes (Frank Marsh), Erin O'Brien Moore (his sister), Thomas Mitchell (McKinley), and Charles Richman (Dr Tindal).

Starting with What Price Glory? in 1926 and ending with Call Out the Marines! in 1942, Edmund Lowe and Victor McLaglen partnered each other in ten features of which this is the fifth. Much as I would have preferred Frank Craven and Thomas Mitchell, we have to put up with an adequately obnoxious Lowe and an almost equally inadequate, camera-hogging McLaglen instead.

Fortunately, photographer Karl Struss often comes to the film's rescue. Struss had an excellent working relationship with director Kenton, who was only too pleased to allow Struss to perform whatever miracles he liked to give the film distinction and "class". The chilling opening sequence is most effectively photographed and cut. And there are other sequences too (the visit to the jail), in which Struss' mind-blowing lighting effects carry the picture. Struss's efforts to vary the monotony of the Lowe-McLaglen scenes by having the actors bob their heads straight into the camera is more obtrusive but certainly inventive. Despite Struss' efforts, however, 80 minutes of continuous Lowe-Mclaglen wrangling does tend to be rather wearying. But finally it all ends much as you might expect. True, the plot's resolution is not the neatest, but by that stage, you are past caring. You just want all the shouting to cease and that welcome The End title finally flash on the screen.

Stephenson sneaks off with the movie's acting honors (he has by far the best part and is given some harrowing "business"), but Fred Kelsey's eager Detective Duffy is not far behind, while Adrienne Ames seems certainly the goods as the attractive heroine. It's also a pleasure to see and hear Elizabeth Patterson as the witness/landlady.

With a photographer so close to the actors that you can see every line in their face, a finger pointing directly into the lense and jarring movements in very tense situations, wrist is film art at its very best. it is a story of an elder man who murdered his wife, framing another for it and pretty much getting away with it almost up until that man's execution. The fact that it's the normally noble Henry Stephenson is shocking enough, but his methods are ingenious up to arranging for radio to turn on automatically to give him an alibi after he has killed her. Adrienne Ames is certain that her brother Richard Arlen, who was involved with the deceased, is Innocent, but the presence of a broken watch that belonged to him set up for the hangman's noose.

Detective Edmund Lowe and Victor McLaglen, paired regularly from the silent era through the 1940's, are together again as the detectives on the case, and they are great as usual. There's also Elizabeth Patterson as the frantic landlady, Fred Kelsey as the dumber than a box of rocks copper, and Ralph Ince and Noel Francis as accomplices of Stephenson's. this is a delight from start to finish, one of the great pre-code murder mysteries (with plenty of comedy), and one that should be delighted to watch play out. The great script aids the photography, and Paramount art direction team does a terrific job making this glamorous in addition to suspenseful.