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An inventor is killed and a boring investigation ensues. A B murder mystery starring Bela Lugosi with wooden performances from most of the cast, save for two cringeworthy turns from Hattie McDaniel and Allen Jung as stereotypical servants. It moves along at a snail's pace and struggles to maintain even a little suspense. The biggest selling point of this today is not Bela; he's very subdued in this and therefore not that interesting. The main reason to see this is for the fascinating historical elements. We get to see some early television technology and get an idea of how people viewed the concept of television back then. It's fun to watch a group of stuffy old people in tuxedos and gowns sitting around in stiff Victorian chairs to see a demonstration of this newfangled invention called television. Worth a look for Lugosi completists or anyone interested in television history.

I will have to echo other reviewers on this film. Bela as always is great... he maintained his dignity and was wonderful in this rather so-so film. The movie has the potential to be a really good, cute mystery-thriller with a few good laughs thrown in for good measure - but it failed to reach that point. It's not a downright awful movie but it's not as good as one would hope it to be. It's somewhere in the middle ground. It is a slow film, I like some films that are slow but this one could have used a bit quicker pace with some interesting scenes added - like seeing the twins Dr. Arthur Perry / Edwin Perry together (both played by Lugosi).

Watch this film for Bela Lugosi. You will get to see him playing twins (duel roles) which in itself is fun - something a little bit different for Lugosi fans.

5/10

Although the crime feature "Murder By Television" has a couple of good points, it is really only fair (at best) overall. Bela Lugosi makes the best of a somewhat atypical role for him, and at times the thoughts and speculations about early television are of some interest. Otherwise, the production, the characters, and most of the cast are all nondescript. The story just never fits together very well, and it also never really hits full gear.

Lugosi plays the assistant to an inventor who is supposed to have pioneered a form of early television that is full of valuable possibilities. The invention is coveted by a number of outside interests, and the murder mystery that results is caught up with the intrigue surrounding the invention. It sounds like an intriguing setup, and it could have been, but the script doesn't make very good use of it. Both the dialogue and the story could easily have been much better.

Lugosi adds presence to any role, and his is easily the most interesting of the characters for that reason, but he is still limited by the material. Besides Lugosi, the most talented performer in the cast is Hattie McDaniel, and she also is severely limited by her character, who is there only to provide some slight comic relief, which comes at the unfortunate character's expense.

This won't have any appeal at all for anyone who is not a fan of its genre, and even for those of us who usually enjoy these old B-features regardless of their quality, it is, unfortunately, only barely worth watching.

This movie is just bad beyond belief. The acting is horrid, while the cast is simply reciting lines with little feeling. I do wonder where they got these people. The actors just chop up the dialog like a salad. The television idea is just that, with no real sense of development in a hopeless, lifeless plot. The lack of a music track in 1935 is not uncommon, but some sort of musical score was really needed in a suspense movie of this type. I had wanted to see his movie for years. Now I can honestly say I am sorry did. As many a horror movie philosopher has said, somewhere in the middle of an endlessly dark night, "There are some things that are best left alone." This movie, sadly, is one of them. May it rest in peace.

This could have and should have been a hell of a lot more fun than it is, but instead we're stuck watching a bunch of people standing around talking for an hour about some sort of "death ray" emitted by a new contraption called a television set. Not much happens here, it's just a lot of talk and standing around, and more standing around and more talking. Even Bela Lugosi (playing two characters!) doesn't have anything to work with here, nothing can save this mess.

It might hold slight appeal for those who are interested in an early look at both cinema and television, but horror fans and Lugosi fans will be bored to tears with this one. It's static and slow moving.

When one watches an old B movie from one of the poverty row studios, you should go in cutting a little slack. This picture, even with that mea culpa, does not fare well. Bela Lugosi does an excellent job in the acting department, but up against the passionless talking automatons in this turkey, Huntz Hall would come off as Laurence Olivier.

The story is simple. Watching a TV broadcast, a man suddenly chokes and dies on camera. (He probably wanted to get out of this waste of celluloid as soon as possible.) Now, the room full of people are all suspects, and the cops close up the house until the crime is solved.

Besides moving along so slowly that the hour length seems interminable, this isn't the only sin the producers made on this curio. The usual banter with racial stereotypes is embarrassing to say the least. From the Chinese houseboy who rattles off Charlie Chan and Confucious sayings so badly you can't understand his words half the time, to Hattie McDaniell slipping up and even using proper English for a moment when the writing for her character has the usual "negro" speech patterns, it is a textbook example of how racist a time the 1930s were.

It is probably because of bad movies like this that Mr, Lugosi's career went into such a tailspin that eventually took his life. Yet, he does acquit himself nicely in the acting department here playing not only a scientist but his own twin (though the two Belas never share a scene due, I suspect, to a dismally low budget) The fact that the film is so horrendous and wastes a great opportunity to utilize the budding medium of television And even the solution to the mystery is the pits. I won't give a spoiler here, but there IS no way to spoil this ending. It was pitiful - along with the rest of this script.

On top of all this, the copies that exist are so bad and have many jump-cuts throughout. A true shame and waste of the legendary Bela Lugosi.

Finally, I wonder if this director had much of a career beyond this joke of a studio that most likely was owned by some theater chain (as many such studios did prior to the anti-trust laws.) He probably went into accounting or some other less creative field.

There are only two reasons for people to rate this film higher than a five. They are either Bela Lugosi fanatics who are blinded by his star power, or they're pulling your leg.

In it's favor, this film has the following curiosities:

Bela Lugosi in a rare non-horror leading role.

Hattie McDaniel in an early screen appearance (although running around yelling "Lordy, Lordy" doesn't showcase her future greatness very well).

A curious 1935 vision of television that doesn't seem to need cameras at the point of origin and can act as a "death ray" carrier wave. I guess that makes this a science fiction story, of sorts.

And occasionally interesting story-telling by reshowing the same scene using different vantage points to add information withheld earlier in the film.

Working against this film is:

The poor print quality (both picture and sound)of existing copies. Insulting racial stereotyping. (As implied above.)

Ridiculously inaccurate scientific predictions about television. (As implied above.)

Undeveloped characters, giving the audience a "who cares" feeling when someone gets murdered.

And a general weakness of the writing, acting, and directing.

Being a Lugosi fan myself, it pains me to write negative reviews of some of his films. But the truth is, it pains me to watch some of his performances as well.

I'm giving this film three stars, based on the curiosities mentioned above. If I were to rate it any higher, I'd be pulling your leg.

An inventor makes a TV network that does not need a relay to broadcast across the world. Everyone wants the secret to the electronic tube that can do this. It includes industries and governments and cabals.

During his maiden transmission of piano music, the inventor will reveal a new addition. Unfortunately, he is all choked up and the shadow of death crosses the screen. Yep, the inventor is dead and everyone that should have been watching the broadcast was elsewhere. Among the who-dun it's is Bella's twin brother. We also get the added how was it done?

The film was scratchy and badly cut. The dialog, well lots of talking, but little is relevant to the story. The plot was too ambitions for the simple conclusion.

Essentially a locked-room mystery, this is about as bad as they get, even for the 1930s. Lugosi is weirder than usual as one of several businessmen interested in a new method of electronic television (which was nothing more than a novelty at the time) that allows broadcast around the world. Oddly prescient (it's even projected onto a large screen), the technology is otherwise hilarious, particularly in the explanation of the murder technique.

The acting is lame (especially the stereotyped servants), the staging hokey, the dialog boring, and the mystery ridiculous. Avoid this turkey unless you're just completing your tour of Lugosi's work or are interested in the 1930s vision of the near future.

Bela Lugosi was always an underrated actor; capable of different types of roles. This a good Lugosi "who-done-it movie. Like Bela's "Dracula", this film lacks a musical score; however the acting is very good and Bela's performance will please his legions of fans. He doesn't wear a cape or tends to his usual "mad scientist" lab here. Instead, Mr. Lugosi dons a tuxedo for most of the movie! The plot deals with something that was only a dream for a lot of people during the thirties; television. It's interesting how much television was on the minds of many people in 1935. In fact, TV would have been a part of the American lifestyle much earlier had it not been for World War Two. "Murder By Television" shows a glimpse of what was to be as well as being a good murder mystery from the mid-thirties. Recommended viewing.

Murder By Television is one of Bela Lugosi's more obscure movies but at least it is available on video and DVD. I quite liked this.

While doing a worldwide broadcast promoting that new invention called television, a man suddenly collapses and looks as if he could have had a heart attack. His death was certainly not caused by his heart, it seems he was murdered by a death ray. The police are put on the case and there are plenty of suspects...

This is a nice little horror/mystery, even though a little short at under an hour.

Watch it if you get the chance.

Rating: 3 stars out of 5.

I purchased this movie in 1984, when I was a teenager. It is a low-medium budget whodunnit and it's great.Bela shines playing the FBI agent hero and his greedy, manipulative twin brother.An early version of television proves to also be a conduit for the "Interstellar frequency, otherwise known as the death ray!".This film is fantastic fun and Bela oozes charisma throughout.You may also recognize a young Hattie McDaniel (Gone With The Wind).If you can find it, this a great little flick.

I am always amazed when I find yet another ultra-low budget film starring Bela Lugosi. While I do generally enjoy his films, they certainly were not 'high art' or very deep--and so many of them had downright crappy production values. Often it looked as if Bela would appear in ANY film provided the check cleared! You don't believe me, then think back to such horrid films as PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA, ZOMBIES ON Broadway, GHOSTS ON THE LOOSE (with the East Side Kids) and MURDER BY TELEVISION!!! However, often despite the terrible budgets and overall cheesiness of the films, they were still often fun to watch--or at least to laugh at due to their ineptness. Unfortunately, MURDER BY TELEVISION is that rare low-budget Lugosi film that actually is kind of boring and static. Despite being a murder mystery, the film is amazingly static and uninvolving. Plus, the roles played by Bela just seemed terribly written and bizarre--and not in a great way. The only major plus this film has that raises it to almost-mediocrity is the idea of television being a topic of a film as early as 1930. From a purely historical standpoint, it is an interesting film.

This movie is one of those many movies that sounds much better than it actually is. The "death-ray by television broadcast" plot device was actually quite minor in this otherwise sub-par 'whodunit' quickie from poverty row. Overall a really poor example as I have seen much better from poverty row.

Bela Lugosi's role really isn't very interesting and he is much better when playing more bizarre characters (Murder Legendre - White Zombie, Dracula, Dr. Carruthers - The Devil Bat).

1935's "Murder by Television" is only recalled today due to the top billed presence of Bela Lugosi, fresh from the set of MGM's "Mark of the Vampire," but far below even the Poverty Row standard of Monogram's recent Lugosi vehicle "The Mysterious Mr. Wong." With a director in Clifford Sanforth who only stepped behind the camera on three more occasions, this threadbare quickie exploits the possibility of television but only as a weapon for a dishwater dull whodunit where the culprit is fairly obvious, and the entire cast of expressionless chain smokers seems completely unruffled by two deaths under one roof. Originally titled "The Houghland Murder Case," the new moniker merely confuses the unwary viewer into thinking a bit of science fiction may be afoot, as Prof. James Houghland (Charles Hill Mailes) is demonstrating his latest televised technology, worth millions to various unsavory characters shown at the picture's opening, when he suddenly grabs his chest and collapses dead during the broadcast. Lugosi is curiously cast as twins (18 minutes screen time), Arthur Perry the professor's assistant for several months, Edwin Perry his long estranged brother, suddenly turning up in the same suit of clothes to try to swindle a fortune for himself by selling out, only to turn up dead himself at the 38 minute mark. Never fear, the other Bela has all the evidence to reveal the killer, creating a fatal 'death ray' with his own scientific knowledge before being forced to stab the bad Bela to eliminate competition. The opportunity to play twins precedes Boris Karloff's Columbia triumph "The Black Room" by three months, but this poorly scripted fiasco wastes Lugosi's talents in either part, nor is there any satisfaction gained from figuring out which is which because they are never seen together in the same shot. A little seen, misshapen movie that fails to deliver on any of its gimmicks, looking and sounding like an early talkie without any music, it certainly deserves a nomination as the worst film of Bela's entire career.

This isn't the kind of movie for today's film fan who just wants old-fashioned mysteries with as much suspense and atmosphere as he can get, neither for those who are looking for sheer, funny entertainment - it's a REAL time document about the development of television (the enormous importance of which people simply don't think about anymore when they turn on their flat screen HD TV to watch a live football game or a thriller full of computer effects), about the fights between the few companies that existed then for every innovation of that new medium (which were of course worth millions at that stage), about the excitement that the first live broadcasts brought to people at that time.

It also displays a couple of more or less (in)credible technical and electrical devices like the 'criminal mind detector' or the 'death ray' - which may make us laugh today, but most certainly impressed the audience of the 30s enormously - we always have to take into account how people saw those movies that we've got the privilege to enjoy now, about 80 years later, BACK THEN! The pace of the movie itself is comparatively slow - perhaps deliberately made so in order to enhance the suspense that the audience felt THEN about that incredible live broadcast everybody was awaiting eagerly. The plot, seen as a murder mystery, is made quite complicated by the big number of suspects, and some dialogs may seem a little lengthy; but the philosophic Chinese house boy (a Charlie Chan fan) and the resolute black cook make up for that with quite some comic relief.

And then, of course, there is the movie's star - 'the center of attention', as he calls himself at one point humorously: Bela Lugosi. And he CERTAINLY proved once more here with his dominating, simply magnetic, sometimes seemingly dangerous, sometimes charming and gentleman-like performance that he was capable of playing a LOT of other roles than that of the vampire or the demented scientist!

Some fun big names in this one.... Bela Lugosi was in EVERY horror film in the 1930s and 1940s. Huntley Gordon, Charles Mailes, and George Meeker co-star in this who-dunnit from 1935. Henry Mowbray is "Chief Nelson", who has to figure out what's going on. and keep an eye out for Hattie McDaniels, a couple years before Gone with the Wind! the dead man had some new inventions on the brand new television broadcast media, and that could be the reason. and Charles Mailes was married to Claire McDowell, who play husband in wife in the film. pretty good stuff. Directed by Cliff Sanforth, who directed a whopping FOUR films, so there aren't any oscar awards in his list.

This was a film that I kept popping up when looking at horror films from the 1930s. It sticks out with the title. Something that didn't click for me was that it featured Bela Lugosi. This was another one that I was excited to check out as I continue to work through this filmography. I did find this on Tubi, which made it easy for this to be a Voyage through the FiVes film.

Synopsis: James Houghland (Charles Hill Hailes), inventor of a new method by which television signals can be instantaneously sent anywhere in the world, refuses to sell the process to companies, who then send agents to acquire the invention any way they can.

This movie doesn't waste any time jumping into this. We start by getting to meet Professor Houghland and then other players who are interested in his invention. He is aided in his research by Richard Grayson (George Meeker). He is also interested in James' daughter, June (June Collyer). Also aiding in the research is Dr. Arthur Perry (Lugosi). Later this evening there is going to be a presentation on live television to show that this technology works.

There are a number of people who are interested in obtaining this. I believe that Prof. Houghland's rival is Dr. Henry M. Schofield (Huntley Gordon), a media tycoon of Donald M. Jordan (Charles K. French) and someone we learn about later on is Mendoza (Larry Francis). An offer comes in, which is refused by the professor.

The presentation then starts with June playing the piano ahead of James coming out to explain how what he's doing is possible. This ends in tragedy though. Prof. Houghland is murdered on live television. The only thing that is known is that a bright light turned on right before he collapsed.

The prime suspect is Arthur, since he wasn't in the control room like he was supposed to be. It turns out that he was near the area at the time of death. Nelson (Henry Mowbray) is the chief of police and he's in charge of the investigation. He starts to look at the evidence, gets aid from Arthur, but we see him doing odd things. Dr. Schofield also received a telephone call during the presentation that makes him a suspect. Another possible person is Ah Ling (Allen Jung). He's the butler for James but knows a lot about television and the technology behind it. Not everything is as it seems and Nelson has his work cut out for him.

That is where I'll leave my recap and introduction to the characters. Where I want to start is that the movie moves at breakneck speed. It jumps right in and I'll be honest, I struggled to figure out who everyone was. The runtime is 53 minutes, which is great, but I think this needs to slow down to help develop just a bit more. It probably didn't help that at the time of watching it was later at night. I was tired and I believe it was a Friday night. Just additional information to provide here.

Where I wanted to start was with something from the monologue that Prof. Houghland gives. He brings up how television was still a novelty. It was only the rich elites that had it. He was hoping that with the new technology he has come up with, that it will help make things transmit without delay on relays. It also seemed that he wanted to make it more affordable, or something along these lines. It is interesting to watch this 90+ years after it came out and grew up with TV like I have. That makes it an intriguing time capsule.

Then, going along with this idea, we are also getting the dangers of new technology. The world that has tuned in watches James die. The things he says and is hoping for are twisted for nefarious purposes. There's also the idea that the inventor is murdered with his own creation. The idea of an unseen consequence is what the early assumption could be. That is until murder is suspected. It is from that point then that the general public would be concerned. Since this is a novelty medium at the time, I could see the fear being 'what if my television could be weaponized'. Curious thing to think about since I've had a TV in my room since childhood. I do like exploring this concept.

Now this does turn into a murder mystery. There are a number of suspects with the major idea there being corporate rivalry. There are suspects who could be linked directly or it is learned they are considered due to their connection to someone. That helps give the story depth and also red herrings. I'll be honest, this part worked. Normally when a movie is this short, this part of the story feels rushed. I don't love what the reveal is, it felt like a cheat for me. This still had me wondering who was responsible and I'll give credit where it is due.

Let's then go over to the acting performances. Lugosi's great here. He's clearly one of the top draws. What I like about him is that he seems suspicious about things that he does. We notice it as do other characters. My issues don't come from what he does, but with the writing. Collyer and Meeker are good as our two leads. Mailes works as the catalyst to cause everyone to come together and then his murder is a mystery. Gordon, French and the other suspects work to progress the story. Mowbray plays a believable detective. The acting isn't great, but it fits what was needed here.

All that is left then is with filmmaking. It is hard to credit due to the quality of the print. It was washed out, which made it more difficult to figure out who the characters were at times. The cinematography and framing that I saw were fine. There were good things with the editing when it came to showing the telecast of Prof. Houghland. We don't get much in the way of the effects aside from that. It is more about the mystery though. The soundtrack was also fine without standing out.

In conclusion, there are good elements here. The use of technology that is now a standard is interesting. Weaponizing is a terrifying thing as well. This is a decent little murder mystery that just needs a bit more to work better in my opinion. Fleshing out the characters just a bit more would help. With the low runtime, which would be done without bogging things down. The acting is still solid. Lugosi is leading the way there. A cleaner print would help to make this more enjoyable, but I still thought this was made well enough. Falls short of the intriguing concept. I can only recommend to people doing a deeper dive into horror of the era or out to work through Lugosi's filmography.

My Rating: 6 out of 10.