SINISTER HANDS

US, 1932, 65 minutes, Black and white.
Jack Mulhall, Phyllis Barrington, Crauford Kent, Mischa Auer, Louis Natheaux, Gertie Mesenger, Lloyd Ingram, James P. Burtis, Phillips Smalley, Helen Foster, Lillian West.
Directed by Armand Schaefer.

Sinister Hands is not essential viewing by any means. It is a small supporting feature from the early 1930s, one of the so-called Poverty Row small-budget films.

The setting is a gathering at a wealthy estate, with some outdoor sequences including tennis but very much a dialogue film, more like a filmed play.

The film opens with the touch of the sinister, a wealthy woman in the thrall of a fake Indian guru (played by character actor Mischa Auer). He makes various predictions as he reads into the woman and her concerns – but is, of course, after her money. Her husband is unwilling to give her the money and she clashes with him. He has been doing some shady financial deals, supervised by his seemingly straightlaced secretary. There are some financial advisors, their flirtatious wives. The wealthy man is flirtatious himself. There is also an ex-criminal intent on marrying into the wealthy society as well is a butler who is also a crook and has spent time in jail. And there is also a respectable judge who assists the chief detective in his investigations.

The film introduces all the characters, with their interactions. There is a session with the guru, the lights going out and, when they go on again, the wealthy host is dead. The detective goes through each of the suspects, quite methodically and listing them for the benefit of the audience, of all the characters and why they should be suspects. Later, there is another murder.

But, because audiences who have been brought up on the books and the film versions of Agatha Christie novels, it is probably pretty clear that the villain is the ever-supportive judge!