TOMORROW AT SEVEN

US, 1933, 64 minutes, Black-and-white.
Chester Morris, Vivienne Osborne, Frank Mc Hugh, Allen Jenkins, Henry Stephenson, Grant Mitchell, Charles Middleton, Gus Robinson.
Directed by Ray Enright.

This is a murder mystery which opens effectively with an art dealer being killed by a jealous rival, the camera pointing on the victim and not identifying the killer – except for an ace of spades card.

The two central characters are travelling on a train, she falling asleep while reading the detective story, he the author of the story. When he explains he is trying to get an interview with the art dealer, she explains that her father is his assistant. Which gets him into an interview.

Chester Morris is the author and Vivienne Osborne the daughter. The film is early enough for several veterans of the succeeding years, supporting character actors, Henry Stephenson as the art dealer, Grant Mitchell as his assistant, Allen Jenkins and Frank Mc Hugh as some inept police officers. There is a role for African- American actor, Gus Robinson.

Almost immediately, there is a murder, the assistant who has looked particularly suspicious since his first arrival. Which means that the finger points to the rather disarming art collector, the dignified Henry Stephenson. And, of course, at the end, he is the villain, surreptitiously killing people with a blade inserted in his walking stick.

The film is effective in having a murder on board a small plane, six people and two pilots. Two of the people are the local marshals, Jenkins and Mc Hugh, who & most of the time in banter which may have been appealing at the time but seems pretty lame in retrospect – however, these are characters they portray in many films and they are comfortable with the consistent patter, and ultimate claims of solving the mystery.

Since there has been a prediction that the art collector will be murdered at 7 o’clock in the evening, there is tension at his mansion in Louisiana, especially with the arrival of the coroner to examine the dead body, the death of one of the pilots, and various threats – as well as the arrival of the genuine coroner.

The novelist then is able to unmask and challenge the killer, fight with his African- American assistant, while the false coroner turns out to be a crime bureau investigator. Surprisingly, the fadeout is some banter between the two police officers rather than happy reunion, romantic style.

The film was directed by Ray Enright, veteran during the 1930s into the 1950s with quite a range of genre films.