THE PANTHER'S CLAW

US, 1942, 69 minutes, Black-and-white.
Sidney Blackmer, Byron Foulger, Rick Vallin.
Directed by William Baudine.

While this is a murder mystery, it is played for smiles more than thrills.

While Sidney Blackmer portrays the local police chief, generally genial and smiling, able to work out what actually happened, the main focus is on Byron Foulger as Mr Eggberry, who gets himself tangled in all kinds of trouble.

He is first seen at night climbing over a cemetery fence and apprehended by the police. He has a letter and a confused story about an extortion letter with a cat’s footprint on it demanding money and a secret rendezvous, the cemetery. It seems that there have been a number of people also receiving these letters they are rounded up to be interrogated by the police. Mr Eggberry seems to be at the centre of all the people concerned who are connected with the opera, singers, managers, those working with costumes. This is important because Mr Eggberry is a wig-maker, very proud of his trade and disparaging of his rival.

Eventually, he confesses to writing all the letters and spinning a yarn to the police. It seems that he has lent 1000 dollars to the opera singer who is poorer than the public believe, has been shielding her when everybody thought she had gone on a voyage to South America, is moving in and out of the hotel where he is lodging while his largish wife and five daughters are away. He wanted to conceal the loan of the thousand dollars from his wife!

Then the plot becomes rather serious and the body count builds – especially the opera singer herself as well as the rival wig-maker. There are various aspects, various police on the job, especially an inspector who tries all the clues and leads into Mr Eggberry.

However, the villain is an imposter from Paris, wanting money from the opera singer, pretending that he had been in the Fighting 69th in World War I, and finally exposed.

Quite slight – it wouldn’t matter too much if an audience didn’t see it.