The Moonstone

Veteran director Reginald Barker -- whose career included several superior William S. Hart Westerns and Thomas Ince's landmark CIVILIZATION -- directed this near the end of his career and he tells the story with a fluid camera and many visual grace notes. Unhappily, the dialogue is not up to the camerawork, but this first sound version of Wilkie Collins' classic mystery is well produced and well worth your time.

In spite of a short 45 minute run time I really enjoyed THE MOONSTONE based on the book by Wilkie Collins. Reginald Baker directs a tight knit collection of performers in this mystery that takes place in a crowded house during a rain storm. Anne Verinder(Phyllis Barry)inherits a priceless gem the Moonstone necklace. Her fiancée Franklin Blake(David Manners)is bringing the precious diamond to England from India. He arrives at the Verinder's countryside home and finds a house full of guests that includes a notorious money lender Carl Von Lucker(Gustav Von Seyffertitz). While everyone is assembled the storm causes the lights to go out and the necklace is snatched from Anne's neck. It was grabbed by a maid for "safe keeping". Anne puts the stone under her pillow and when she awakes the necklace is gone. Scotland Yard Inspector Cuff(Charles Irwin)is to figure out which one of the guests is a jewel thief. The loud rain storm provides great atmosphere. Also in the cast are: Herbert Bunston, Evalyn Bostock, John Davidson and Jameson Thomas.

Considering that Monogram Pictures had a rather huge novel according to some of the other reviewers to work with, the fact that they cut it down to a 62 minute programmer, 46 minutes in the version I've seen, they came up with a coherent version of The Moonstone. The problem was that at least here the suspense seems to have been drained from it.

David Manners and Phyllis Barry head the cast, he as sweetheart and solicitor and custodian of The Moonstone, she as the recipient of both Manners affections and the jewel. A cast of usual suspects supports them, but if you can't figure out who the culprit might be on this dark and stormy night, you don't even need to have seen too many of them.

There is an interesting gimmick in the story involving one of the leads, but I won't go further lest you want to see the film. Still it might have been done better by a major studio.

Despite the hackneyed premise and milieu, the stage was set for a pretty interesting murder mystery. It is a 'gloomy-mansion-on-a-dark-and-stormy-night' movie, which can be very absorbing if done right. It had a good collection of characters/suspects and got off to a good start.

All of sudden came the scientific-drivel denouement, the deus-ex-machina, which was both cynical and anti-climactic. This was the best the author could do? And why the rush to a conclusion? the story is short enough as is. Good performances all around and the production values were very adequate, considering this was a Poverty Row production.

Sorry I can't recommend this one, but I still have a lot of movies left in my DVD collection. On to the next case.

David Manners and Phyllis Barry star in Moonstone, one of the last pictures directed by Reginal Barker. Part of the Reelmedia/Treeline Murder Mystery Collection, the sound and picture quality are pretty rough. IMDb shows original length of 62 minutes, but the Reelmedial version is only 46 minutes... hmmmm... it was already short to begin with... wonder if the missing minutes were cut due to poor quality of the film. It has the usual murder-mystery ingredients - creepy characters, dark and stormy night, lights going out, the man from Scotland yard. The case gets conveniently solved in short order (since this version is so short to begin with) and there are no plots turns or twists. My favorite character is Betteredge, the mouthy old housekeeper, played by Elspeth Dudgeon (born in 1871!) I'd be quite interested to see the 62 minute version sometime.