I'LL NAME THE MURDERER

US, 1936, 66 minutes, Black and white.
Ralph Forbes, Marion Shilling, Malcolm Mc Gregor, James Guilfoyle, John Cowell, William Bailey, Agnes Anderson, Charlotte Barr- Smith, Claire Rochelle, Harry Semels.
Directed by Raymond K. Johnson.

This is a slight but quite entertaining murder mystery, the main setting being a restaurant and dressing rooms.

While the police do come into it and there are interrogations, the main investigator is a gossip columnist, a man about town, played by Ralph Forbes with self-confident charm. There are close-ups of his gossip column day by day and his promising to reveal the murderer.

There are various suspects for the killing. There is Luigi who runs the restaurant, clashing with his waiter whom he will charge for any extra expenses that the journalist incurs, but who also has financial difficulties. There is also a dancer – and the film not only has a dancing sequence but also an African- American tap dancing. There is also a rich man with a flirtatious daughter. And, there is the girlfriend of the journalist – as well as a singer, who also performs, but clashes with her former boyfriend, now courting the rich man’s daughter, and who goes to her dressing room, demands jewels back from her and threatens her with a knife. At this stage the lights go out, the woman is found dead the man threatening her denying that he had anything to do with her death.

The twist in the film is that the journalist goes to private detective, a somewhat comic figure, always trying to get in on an act, claiming more than he achieves – along with a rather starchy secretary.

The even bigger twist is that the murderer is the private detective who had stolen the jewels and hidden them in his safe, finally attacking the journalist and revealed as the killer.

An easy way of passing an hour or more. And observing how films were made, small budget films in the 1930s.


I'LL NAME THE MURDERER

US, 1936, 66 minutes, Black and white.
Ralph Forbes, Marion Shilling, Malcolm Mc Gregor, James Guilfoyle, John Cowell, Charlotte Barr- Smith, Claire Rochelle.
Directed by Raymond K.Johnson.


This is one of those popular murder mysteries of the mid 1930s. Despite the brief running time, there is a dance routine as well as a cabaret song.

There are plenty of suspects for the murder – someone fighting with the victim and a knife, the lights going out, and a dead body who could have been the target of quite a number of people.

The main action takes place in a restaurant being opened, Luigi is the manager on the brink of bankruptcy, hiring and firing at whim, welcoming gossip columnist, Tommy Tilton (Ralph Forbes). He becomes a suspect because of his relationship with the victim, working with her in Chicago, possible blackmail…

The victim is the singer but she has been entangled with a society man wants to get back letters he wrote her and jewelry. It is he who has the struggle with the victim. Also on the scene are the dancing pair, with the victim wanting to be a dancer, and there being some jealousy. Also in the mix is the fiance of the society man as well as her father who is revealed as having given gifts of jewelry to the victim. A down and out private eye also offers his assistance in solving the case – but it is left to Tommy Tilton and his friendship with photographer, Smitty, to work out what happened and whodunit.

In fact, most of the suspects seem more likely than the character who actually did the murder, the private detective!

A slight curiosity item.