The Peacock Fan

After a brief prologue in which we see how a fabulous peacock fan led to tragedy in exotic China, the scene shifts to modern America, where Carlton King has just purchased the feathery thing. It's evening, and he's busy talking to people. He calls for Lucien Prival, a half-Chinese expert in such matters to come over. Before Prival can get there, King is dead, apparently shot, and police sergeant Tom O'Brien is on the site, investigating and suspecting everyone. But Prival interviews all the people present and comes to his own conclusions.

It's a typical early movie mystery, with a bumbling police investigator and a brilliant private citizen. While the solution is ok, it comes out of left field. And like many mystery movies, it is very heavy on talk as each witness must explain what happened and the audience must figure out the lies. The copy I looked at was clean, but not very good. With Dorothy Dwan, Rosemary Theby, Alice True, Spencer Bell, and Lotus Long.