GRIEF STREET
US, 1931, 64 minutes, Black-and-white.
Barbara Kent, John Holland, Dorothy Christy, James P. Burtis.
Directed by Richard Thorpe.
Grief Street is an early talkie, supporting feature, short running time, but taking up themes that were popular in murder mysteries of the time and in the silent era: the murder of someone in a locked room.
The film has a theatre background, quite a drama in the opening minutes and a clash between husband and wife and the audience soon finds that it is the finale of a play being performed in the theatre.
The star is a womaniser, clashes with his wife and the actress who performs with him, is a friend of the stage manager – and, is due to meet everyone at a restaurant, the stage manager finds him strangled in his dressing room which is locked.
There are the police, especially an interfering and inexperienced officer, Jardine, who intervenes all the time and one wishes were offscreen. There is an old culture caretaker who can vouch for the room being locked and no one going in or out. There is a police inspector to whom he is responsible. But there is also a newspaperman who eventually investigates and solves the crime.
Two of the suspects are his long-suffering wife and the man with whom she is having an affair (this is a pre-Code film). The other main character is a young woman, an aspiring actress, who had a relationship with the dead man. She also received notes warning that the actor is to be killed and, later, that this would be the last article by the newspaperman who is so busy typing at that he takes his phone off the hook and so is not warned, and discovering that the girl has rung and that the police inform him that she has been shot (not fatally, of course).
Audiences could have worked out what happened if they worked on the premise that the most likely murderer was the one who found the body and unlocked the door – the manager who has an infatuation about the young girl and was jealous of anyone who favoured her, the actor, the newspaperman…
Of its time, some historical interest.
