MURDER BY INVITATION
US, 1941, 69 minutes, Black and white.
Wallace Ford, Marian Marsh, Sarah Padden, Dave O' Brien.
Directed by Phil Rosen.
Old dark houses were still popular in B features in the early 1940s. This one is an amusing variation. It is also quite comic. And it has the popular, kind of Front Page Story element with Wallace Ford portraying a popular column writer, travelling along with his feisty assistant, Marian Marsh, and his photographer.
At the opening of the film, elderly aunt Cassie, played by British-born Sarah Padden, is a victim of her relatives who want her put into an institution because she cannot manage her money. And she has a lot of it. The court sequences are amusing as she continually one-ups her prosecuting nephew, full of common sense and practicality. Then she calls them all to come to her mansion at midnight for them to stay a week so that she can scrutinise them and know whom she should live leave her money to.
Needless to say, they are not very happy, do assemble, with the staff, including a cook, butler, gardener and mechanic, and an odd next door neighbour who is continually prying. Almost immediately, the prosecutor is murdered, followed by another of the relatives. The others are nervous, as are the newspaper crew who have been called in, the columnist having a reputation for solving mysteries – and, surprisingly, the sheriff continually seeking his advice and opinion.
Since everyone is assembled at the time of the murders, there is a mystery – enhanced by the fact that there are all kinds of moving doors and secret passages. Aunt Cassie is suspected but she is enjoying things more or less and decides to burn the house down, giving the box of money to the cameraman for its safe protection and looking to see who will be the first to rush into the house to save the money. It is her companion, seemingly devoted, who has married the mechanic – who is the actual murderer. For film buffs who enjoyed MGM’s Pete Smith Specialties, it is rather a surprise to find that the mechanic is played by Dave O’ Brien, the victim of all the pratfalls in those short features.
Nothing particularly startling, but an entertaining film of its kind, the blend of the mystery, the touches of comedy, and the performance of Aunt Cassie.
