Forty Naughty Girls

Warner Brothers made some amazing Hildegarde Withers mysteries starring Edna May Oliver. Unfortatunely, Oliver left the studio after making a few of them and the studio tries making a few more of these films with a different woman in the lead. While the substitutes weren't bad, they lacked the wonderful qualities that made the Oliver films fantastic. "Forty Naughty Girls" is one of these Oliver-less films the studio made to try to recapture the magic...and it's the last of second films with Zasu Pitts in the lead.

The story begins with Oscar (James Gleason) and Hildegarde (Pitts) going to see the Broadway show "Forty Naughty Girls". Not surprisingly, during the show there is a murder...and since it happens behind the scenes, the pair investigates while the play continues. Oscar thinks he's figured it all out...the playwright stole the play from a dead author. While this is true, it seems too easy...and it's only about 15 minutes into the movie. Surely there's more to it than this. And, when a second body is discovered, it's obvious that there's more. Can Hildegarde unravel this mess?

This film is a bit unusual because Hildegarde is not that prominent in the story. Much of if shows Inspector Oscar Piper going through his investigation...with Hildegarde showing up here and there to help. Overall, however, it's quite enjoyable even if it was relatively Hildegarde free! An interesting case and well written...but also not quite up to the quality of the older Oliver ones.

I watch these because the 30's was a period of experimentation with narrative form, from which we invented a few new things. What remains is a Burgess Shale deposit of narrative models that for some reason were left behind. One of the more interesting of these is this model. You've likely seen it a dozen times in detective stories from this era.

A homicide detective just happens to be at a play. A murder occurs, then another as the investigation is underway but the play goes on. Required elements include: a doofus; a prop gun apparently used in a real murder during the play; a space under the stage; love affairs, betrayal and blackmail.

Optional but highly desirable is some reference to authorship; here it is the disclosure that the play we see is purloined, as of course it is. At one point our woman detective looks at the audience and remarks on the play within the play, and the joke is that she does it in the play within the play within the play.

By this time the Hildegard Withers franchise was completely worn out. There's scant humor and what we have are recycled jokes. One example: while investigating in the space under the stage, Zasu hooks her dress on a coat of armor. These always must have been carefully placed on a wheeled platform because they always follow their hapless target around comically.

This would be the last of the Hildegard films. And viewers would soon say goodbye to the play-murder form, designed in part to give us a few songs to fill in for the usually thin plot. But this play, stage, murder business would stick as something to reference instead of use directly. "The Illusionist" used it in the story within the story within the story, (complete with stage basement) in order to fool the respective audiences about a murder.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

FORTY NAUGHTY GIRLS (RKO Radio, 1937) directed by Edward Cline, marks the sixth and final installment involving Stuart Palmer based characters of Hildegarde Withers and Inspector Piper that began with PENGUIN POOR MURDER (1932) starring Edna May Oliver and James Gleason. With James Gleason heading the cast and the only one to play the same character throughout the entire series, this edition marks the second the co-star the miscast ZaSu Pitts playing Miss Withers. As much as this could have been called "Murder at the Show," its chosen theatrical title is actually the name of the play where both Piper and Withers are part of the audience only to find their evening spoiled when a murder takes place backstage.

Set in New York City's Broadway district, the sold-out box office success of "Forty Naughty Girls" is going on its twelfth week with motion picture rights being considered. The plot development revolves around Edward C. "Windy" Bennett (Eddie Marr), a press agent in love with its leading lady, Rita Marlowe (Joan Woodbury), but happens to be engaged to the show's producer, Ricky Rickman (Alan Edwards). During the performance, Windy makes a pass on June Preston (Marjorie Lord), one of the entertainers, but is socked down by Bert (George Shelley) in her defense. Later, June returns to her dressing room to discover Windy dead. Oscar Piper (James Gleason) of the Homicide Squad, and Hildegarde Withers (ZaSu Pitts), his date for the evening, are called to investigate. As Piper goes through his usual channels of investigation with Casey (Tom Kennedy), another member of the police force, Hildegarde goes through her own methods smelling chorus girls to locate the fragrance that matches the victim's handkerchief. With Tommy Washburn (Aden Chase) shot during a skit believed to be part of the act, Piper is more baffled about the gun used for the skit was not the one used for the killing. Other members of the cast include Frank M Thomas, Barbara Pepper and Edward LeSaint. Songs heard during the show are "Forty Naughty Girls" and "What a Thrill."

Though the story starts off well, it fails to deliver into a classic murder tale. Often considered as the weakest of the entire series, it's amazing the series went this far after the departure of Edna May Oliver. What might have helped this, and Pitt's series debut of THE PLOT THICKENS (1936) was in having Pitts playing Hildegarde's sister (let's call her Withergarde) rather than recasting the original character. This way it would be Piper investigating with another character as opposed to those familiar with the series to not comparing Oliver's superior performance to Pitt's dithering downplay. Clocked at its short 62 minutes, with the majority of the story being more Piper than Withers which helped somewhat but much of the overly familiar comedic overtones offered little or no humor to the proceedings.

Never distributed on video cassette, FORTY NAUGHTY GIRLS and others in the series did have cable television broadcasts over the years as American Movie Classics (prior to 1999) and later Turner Classic Movies. (**)

Schoolmarm Hildegarde Withers (Zasu Pitts) and her friend Inspector Oscar Piper (James Gleason) go out for a night on Broadway. Naturally, no evening on the town can take place without murder, not when Hildegarde and the Inspector are around. This entry in the series is played more broadly for laughs than its predecessors but not much more than typical for the B-level crime movies of the day. The problem here, from my perspective, is that Zasu Pitts's character is so different from the great Edna May Oliver's that only the name appears to be the same. Edna May's Hildegard Withers was a feisty old girl who basically ran the Inspector's case for him despite his grousing. Zasu plays her standard ditz and the movie suffers for it. It's hard to imagine the Inspector putting up with her; moreover, some of the slapstick seems forced. On the other hand, this entry is saved by a very clever plot with plenty of false leads and twists. The film might have played better as a straight mystery rather than mystery/comedy. By the way, the lovely Marjorie Lord gets an early turn here as a singer/hoofer type.

... whoever is responsible for this travesty was very naughty and deserves to be grounded. It takes a great deal of effort to make either James Gleason or Zasu Pitts boring - in fact I'd never seen it happen before - but this film did it.

This film was supposed to be a continuation of the James Gleason/Edna Mae Oliver crime mysteries starting with Penguin Pool murder in 1932. Those two had great chemistry and were a believable pair both in the sleuthing and possibly even romantic categories. The zingers and one liners flew in their films, even after the production code came in. Here Zasu Pitts is replacing Ms. Oliver as schoolteacher Hildegarde Withers as she and detective Oscar Piper (James Gleason) step out together to watch the show "Forty Naughty Girls". Beforehand there is a set-up of situations that show the eventual murder victim causing trouble for various people associated with the show. When he predictably turns up dead, Piper and Withers are on the scene to solve the mystery. The problem is, from that point forward they are not really acting as a team as they were before. They seem to be operating independently and just bump into each other as a matter of circumstance or slapstick.

The show that acts as a backdrop for the mystery just doesn't seem very naughty or even funny for that matter, the suspects are not very interesting or memorable, and our two leads are poorly served by the entire mess. If you want to see what this crime series was at its peak watch "Penguin Pool Murder", "Murder on the Blackboard", or "Murder on a Honeymoon". If you want to see James Gleason and Zasu Pitts be entertaining, watch just about anything they ever did but this.