You'd Be Surprised

Raymond Griffith was a very popular comedian of the late silent era, who is now forgotten because very few of his films have survived. He also embodies the cliché of the silent-film star whose voice is inappropriate for talkies: due to a bronchial ailment, Griffith could not speak above a whisper. After a couple of brief sound-film appearances, Griffith went on to a successful career as a producer at 20th Century-Fox.

Griffith usually played a top-hatted, opera-cloaked sharpster who is always one jump ahead of everybody else in the movie. In "You'd Be Surprised" his character is a bit more flappable than usual: a jug falls on his head, a door hits him in the face, and a bullet narrowly misses him.

"You'd Be Surprised" is a neat comedy which may have inspired the board game Clue (or Cluedo, as we call it in Britain). "You'd Be Surprised" features a murder at a posh party, and (just like in Cluedo) most of the suspects are named for colours: White, Brown, Grey, Green.

The entire film takes place aboard a houseboat, during a party in which the host is murdered and the famous Sultana diamond necklace is stolen.

All the evidence points to Dorothy Sebastian as the murderer. But she can't possibly be guilty, because she's a beautiful young woman ... and the rules of film comedy dictate that beautiful young women are never guilty of murder. Griffith plays the coroner who wants to solve the murder in a hurry, because he's got tickets to the opera.

This film is quite funny, and it benefits from Griffith's typically surreal lapses of logic. At one point, he steps out of the room and returns a moment later with six people (chosen at random) who will serve as the coroner's jury. How he managed to find these people aboard a houseboat is never explained. One of the jurors is an Italian hot-dog vendor who looks and acts remarkably like Chico Marx ... and he keeps Griffith supplied with hot dogs (with mustard and sauerkraut) all during the murder inquest.

An ironic footnote: the silent-film actor Granville Redmond, who plays a phony deaf-mute in this movie, actually *was* a deaf-mute. Like Griffith's stardom, Redmond's career was ruined by the arrival of talkies. One of the most ironic moments in silent-film history occurs late in "You'd Be Surprised", as Redmond and Griffith hold a normal conversation on screen: since this is a silent film, we don't realise that (in real life) Griffith didn't have a voice and Redmond wasn't able to hear him anyway! Richard Arlen (who would star in "Wings" less than a year later) makes a brief uncredited appearance in "You'd Be Surprised" as a crime photographer, and he demonstrates real star presence in his small role.

The title cards were co-written by Robert Benchley, whose low-key comedy style was similar to Griffith's.

SPOILER: "You'd Be Surprised" claims to be a comedy whodunnit, but the solution to the "mystery" is arbitrary and disappointing. Griffith grabs a party guest seemingly at random, and denounces him as the murderer ... but we never see Griffith's process of deduction. Still, this is a comedy, and it's pretty funny, so I'll rate "You'll Be Surprised" 7 out of 10 and recommend it to all lovers of silent-film comedy.

Set on Friday the 13th, this film is a delightful comedy/ theft/ murder/ mystery with Raymond Griffith as a coroner who wants to solve the crimes on a houseboat in time to make it to the opera. Robert Benchley wrote the title cards, which were quite amusing - including the one about not disturbing the body of the deceased, because that was a job for the coroner, which became funnier upon each repetition. The off-beat jury rounded up by the police force apparently were in the mood to wrap things up quickly, calling "Guilty!" more than once as suspects were brought forth until admonished by the coroner not to find anyone guilty until he *told* them to. Griffith's routine with a double-sided coin (also seen in PATHS TO PARADISE) netted him food from both the milk man & hot dog vendor on the jury.

A deaf & dumb valet with whom the coroner communicates via the manual alphabet for the deaf (I couldn't keep up to see if intelligible words were being formed but I could discern proper letter formation from my interest in junior high days) was a nice touch, as was a black cat which wandered about at (in)opportune times.

Continued blowing of whistles after the arrival of the first police officer resulted in more and more officers appearing, somewhat like the sequence in PATHS TO PARADISE when the motorcycle cops pursuing the getaway car seem to never cease multiplying. But the coroner finally fingers the thief/murderer through clever psychological questioning and modern forensics, allowing him to leave for the opera with a young woman exonerated by his efforts.

A fast and funny picture from Raymond Griffith, the top-hatted comic whiz of the mid-twenties, one of the few silent stars whose careers actually was wrecked by a bad voice -- he could only speak in a whisper -- and whose pictures have largely vanished due to the malign neglect of his studio. This time he's the coroner called in to crack a murder -- but he was on his way to the theater and can only spare an hour. Watch for Roscoe Karns and Richard Arlen in small roles. Title cards by Robert Benchley!