User Reviews

Murder and comedy do mix; We learned that through Philo Vance, Nick and Nora, and various other amateur detectives who sneaked their way into screwball comedy in the 1930's. So in this neat little Universal second feature, there's quite a bit of it around. The opening sequence shows the hateful radio show sponsor Caesar Kluck (a delightfully imperious Breton Churchill) keep putting his foot in it, abusing the staff, sexually harassing pretty Nan Grey and insulting the talent on the show he sponsors. So when he turns up deader than a decapitated chicken, nobody is surprised, but the death at first appears to be from natural causes, not aided along by man. Grey, along with sound engineer Donald Woods, takes charge of exposing the truth which reveals a lot of suspects and some surprising clues. Of course, he gets no help from equally imperious radio station owner Jed Prouty who ironically was nowhere to be seen in the early scenes while Churchill was around. Prouty is very funny in a scene where he tries to keep the press at bay, insisting that there's no poison in the station's air conditioning system while being surrounded by fans, humidifiers and anything else that would remove anything toxic.

Moving along briskly with the frenetic surroundings of the radio station creating a lot of normal daily havoc in addition to the two murders which occur, this is a nice little surprise to find amongst the many mediocre low budge murder mysteries of the 1930's and 40's. Woods, a normally dull actor with little pizazz, adds some oomph to his sound engineer, getting in some good cracks at the expense of both Churchill and Prouty. Skeets Gallagher adds his usual plethora of subtle acidic comedy, while many other familiar faces (including a young Lee J. Cobb) pop up as well. There's even a Bing Crosby imitator thrown in for good measure. So while radio means very little to people today without cars, it once was the cheap way of receiving entertainment, and in this case, the Big Broadcast is a great way to spend an hour. You won't feel at all cheated.

One of the Universal Crime Club films.

The story of what happens at a radio station when a hated sponsor is killed by mysterious means.

Its a good if rambling film that seems to be taking its time in getting where it's going. It's not bad but even running a brief 70 minutes you kind of wish that they'd pick up their pace a bit.

That said the use of a gas a a murder weapon and some intriguing characters-there is one guy who can imitate everyone and when people are afraid to enter the building he does all the voices himself- make this memorable.

It may not be something to search out but it is something you'll want to watch when you do run across it. (then again oldies.com has it for a couple of bucks so it's worth it)

I love all mystery movies from the 30s&40s. I think they were well done. They may have used lesser known actors and actresses. However I think they did a very good job given the limited budget and running time.

This is a likable little murder mystery - and I mean that literally: even counting a trigger-happy gangster and a loudmouthed boss, the murder victim is still by far the most unlikable person in the film (and, needless to say, gets an early exit)! There are so many characters in this dense mystery that you may need to watch it twice to get it all straight in your head, but even that won't take up too much of your time, as the film is barely over an hour long and moves quickly enough. And there are at least three fairly unique elements in it: 1) The killing method (which I don't want to spoil here), 2) The fact that, when our amateur detective assembles all the suspects in one room at the end he does NOT know who the murderer is, he only knows how he did it, and how to expose him, and 3) Nan Grey deals with the unwanted advances of a much older man in a way that you very rarely see in such an early film: by a strong punch to his gut! (though the actual contact happens off-screen). **1/2 out of 4.