THE STUDIO MURDER MYSTERY
US, 1929, 62 minutes, Black-and-white.
Neil Hamilton, Doris Hill, Warner Oland, Fredric March, Chester Conklin, Florence Eldridge, Eugene Pallette.
Directed by Frank Tuttle.
Audiences noting the date, 1929, might expect something of a B-budget rather rickety film. In fact, it is better than quite a number of films of this period although it is still a B-budget film but from Paramount Studios.
The film begins with what looks like a murder but is actually a rehearsal for a film, Fredric March, a wealthy man, a serial philanderer, wanting to act in films. His director is played by Warner Oland, later Charlie Chan. It immediately emerges that the director is jealous of the actor and his relationship with his wife. Almost immediately, a young actress, daughter of the security guard, comes to the office of the actor who declares his love for her and a divorce from his wife. Then his wife turns up, played by Florence Eldridge, March's real-life wife for decades, who threatens her husband who declares his love for his wife, no divorce, with the young actress overhearing everything.
Also in the complication besides the security guard is his son, a taxi driver, protective of his sister, as well as the main star, a somewhat irritating screenwriter (irritating to the audience as well as to the characters in the film who reject his ideas), and the guard at the gate. There is also the studio head and then the police.
Perhaps this was something of an original idea in 1929, but the clues are signalled very early and for most audiences the solution will not come as a surprise at all.
In the vein of the times, thinking of Agatha Christie and Hercule Poirot, the five suspicious characters are assembled in a room, the screenwriter is attacked by the actual murderer after he realises what has happened, but he gives the solution to the police – and all is well.
Interesting to see Fredric March in a very early role, winning an Oscar three years later with Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, as well as Florence Eldridge and Warner Oland. Eugene Pallette, also to have a successful career as a character actor, appears as a self-important detective. Director Frank Tuttle was continue to make pictures into the 1950s.
