Penguin Pool Murder

In the 1930s, RKO produced a series of mysteries concerning the detective activities of schoolteacher Hildegarde Withers. Viewing the first film, THE PENGUIN POOL MURDER, one can understand why the series immediately took off. The mystery itself is well constructed and engrossing. Director George Archainbaud's presentation of the murder victim's discovery is imaginative. In an aquarium, a boy discovers a penguin acting strangely, as if encountering an intruder. The penguin's behavior is immediately explained when a corpse suddenly plunges into the tank! The scenario, based on a Stuart Palmer novel, features some intriguing red herrings with plausible motives for the murder. By the time the killer is revealed, it is fairly obvious who the culprit is, but the mystery is resolved in a clever and credible manner.

THE PENGUIN POOL MURDER is especially worthwhile due to its spirited lead performances. As Withers, Edna May Oliver is drolly acerbic, tartly disdaining the police's ineffectual work as she proceeds to solve the case. As Police Inspector Oscar Piper, James Gleason blusters amusingly, determined to find the killer without Withers' help. Oliver and Gleason truly sparkle in their relationship. Initially, they're cagey of each other but an underlying mutual affection quickly develops. Piper and Withers continue to argue about the case throughout the picture but in an amiable manner that precludes the possibility of mutual ill will. Even if the mystery becomes too familiar to be suspenseful upon repeated viewings, THE PENGUIN POOL MURDER can still be savored due to Oliver and Gleason's marvelous chemistry.

As there are many reviews correctly praising the work of Edna Mae Oliver, James Gleason, and RKO studios set decorating department, suffice it to say that this is an outstanding opening entry into the Hildegarde Withers mystery series.

Most of the action of "The Penguin Pool Murders" takes place in a recreation of the beautiful New York Aquarium, which charmed and delighted resident and tourist alike for almost half a century beginning in 1896. The Aquarium was originally located on the southern tip of Manhattan as a leisure attraction for the new immigrant residents of Lower Manhattan for whom Central Park was too far to travel. It opened in the Castle Gardens section of the Park in what was Clinton Gardens, previously Fort Clinton, named after iconic New York State Governor DeWitt Clinton. Originally an island, the land connecting it to Manhattan was later filled in, and Battery Park served as the first stopping point for New Americans before Ellis Island was developed.

Although the Aquarium wasn't large by current standards (only 150 species), and its pools weren't large enough to ensure the well-being and survival of large aquatic mammals like manatees, porpoises, and dolphins, smaller ones like seals fared better.

There was great controversy when New York's "master builder," Robert Moses, who had little respect for preservation and tradition, proposed a bridge from the Battery to Brooklyn. When Moses was frustrated in his efforts for the Bridge, he began preparations for what would become the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel in the 1930s. He began the demolition of the beautiful Clinton Gardens, and only its eleventh hour designation as a National, Landmark caused it to be rescued from oblivion and rebuilt as a treasured landmark..

The collection of animals had been relocated, some to the Bronx Zoo and others to other zoos in the Northeast when the Aquarium closed its doors for the last time in 1941. After the War a new aquarium was constructed and reopened in 1957 in Coney Island. The new facility had over 8000 specimens and 350 species. Although it afforded its permanent residents more space and helped to revitalize the Coney Island area, many felt that it was not an aesthetically pleasing place as the old Battery Park facility, and critics claimed that its unattractiveness was the egotistical Moses' ultimate revenge on the city that denied him his bridge.

Those who have seen Ric Burns' wonderful documentary miniseries "New York" realize that Moses' power made him the most influential individual official in.Big Apple history... and nobody elected him.

In recreating what is one of the few visual records of this beautiful piece of New York history in essentially what was only a B-film series, the RKO set set designers deserve tremendous credit. The mystery itself is first rate with Edna Mae Oliver and James Gleason exuding great humor and personal chemistry as two enjoyably mismatched detectives in this very intriguing whodunit.

I saw this movie at the Stanford Theater, a restored small-town movie palace of 1925. The Stanford only shows old classics, and often some films show up on the bill that sound completely unfamiliar, but sound like they might be worth a look.

Penguin Pool Murder is just such a film. When I reat a little bit about it, it didn't sound too interesting, but since I like the pre-code period so much, and I'd never seen an Edna Mae Oliver film before (other than a tiny snippet from Saturday Night Kid) I decided that I might as well go and see it.

PPM is a fast-paced and hilarious murder mystery, still as gleefully enjoyable as it was upon it's first release. The lead character, school marm Hildegarde Withers, is brilliantly portrayed by snappy, vivacious and proper Edna Mae Oliver. I'm sure some people might get annoyed by her high-toned and imperious British accent, but I loved it. It lent buoyancy to her already top-notch dialogue.

Despite it's status as a B-production (as opposed to a more prestigious "A" movie with more stars, more crowd scenes and an all-around bigger budget), PPM is a movie that reflect's Hollywood's unending attention to detail, high visual standards and emphasis on glamour whenever possible. Take for instance one of the first scenes: Mae Clarke in her posh boudoir, dressed in a shimmering evening gown, making a telephone call and getting accosted by her husband. Later, when she visits the aquarium, she's swathed in an enormous fur collar and the chiquest of clothes. Imagine how many depression-weary families went to see this, and the mother imagined herself with Clarke's clothes and figure. Dad could fancy himself her husband, and the kiddies would be entertained by the character's antics. This is, if any thing, a family in the best sense of the word.

Edger Kennedy has a small role in this, as the token blundering Irish cop. When I was a kid, I saw him perform his routines in the Our Gang shorts When the Wind Blows and The First Seven Years, and again as the antagonized street vendor in Duck Soup. Recently, I've come to dislike his "slow burn" technique, but I'm starting to like it again. It's an acquired taste, that's for sure. Here, Kennedy the cop has a shaved head, which I thought was a bit unusual.

I hope this movie comes out on video and DVD so I can own it for myself. To my limited knowledge, it's still relegated to the vaults, with the likes of so many great movies. Some day, people will begin to hear more about Edna Mae Oliver and want to see her films. Penguin Pool Murder will surface and be enjoyed by a whole new legion of fans. That day will be a good day indeed.

This is the first of three films that Oliver and Gleason made together as teacher Miss Withers and Inspector Piper. It is also the best, though Murder on the Blackboard is also top notch. The series continued without Oliver, but not at the same level. The dialogue is witty, prim, sarcastic and sometimes even suggestive. Gleason and Oliver have a fabulous chemistry, the likes of which would never been seen today, due to casting decisions that have more to do with pretty faces that acting talent and intelligence. If you like early talkie mysteries, this one will satisfy anytime.

With the coming of sound to the movies and "the Crash" to the stock market, musicals, screwball comedies and tightly plotted "cozy" mysteries became staples of 30's film going and frequently a valuable, if unintentional, tour of the decade's culture (one of the potential motives of one of the suspects in THE PENGUIN POOL MURDERS is a "margin call" on a brokerage account about to be wiped out by falling stock prices!).

In 1932, a year after Dashiel Hammett had introduced the "hard boiled" detective to novels and films with his Sam Spade in THE MALTESE FALCON (a decade before the Oscar winning remake we all know today!), while Philo Vance was still at his peak, Charlie Chan had just started his marathon run, and two years before Dashiel Hammett would backtrack to seemingly invent the "comedy mystery" in the first of the THIN MAN series, Stuart Palmer's "Hildegarde Withers" stories were pointing the way to that perfect bantering comedy.

Miss Withers was one of the first screen characters to build on "the little old lady" detectives first introduced by Mary Roberts Rinehart and later to be highly polished - though with fewer comic overtones - in Agatha Christie's Miss Marple tales.

Beautifully acerbic character actress Edna May Oliver first assayed the plum role of Withers in THE PENGUIN POOL MURDER, playing every stereotype of the prim, corseted but observant, spinster school teacher for all they were worth against the background of a solidly plotted mystery and a grand supporting cast headed by perennial mystery fixture James Gleason as the much put-upon Inspector Piper. A New York City now long vanished became an active part of the supporting cast.

While Miss Oliver chose not to be pinned down to the continuing Withers role after only three films (THE PENGUIN POOL MURDER - '32, MURDER AT THE BLACKBOARD - '34 and MURDER ON A HONEYMOON - '35), passing on the part to solid comedienne Helen Broderick for the less well written but enjoyable and frequently aired MURDER ON THE BRIDAL PATH - '36 and (with less effect) fine supporting comedienne Zasu Pitts for a final two (THE PLOT THICKENS - '36, and FORTY NAUGHTY GIRLS - '37), all the Withers' films are fun - but the Olivers are the best of the bunch.

Connoisseurs of period mystery should especially treasure THE PENGUIN POOL MURDER for its location shots of some now vanished (or at least radically transformed) Manhattan landmarks - most notably the then New York City Aquarium (long before the institution decamped to Brooklyn).

The building at Battery Park, at the tip of Manhattan, has since lost its roof and interior to be returned to its original (now landmarked) form as the actual battery (a fort - "Castle Clinton") which protected New York Harbor in the early 1800's. Before becoming the Aquarium shown in the 1932 film it was already a famous roofed building: converted in 1823 to the "Castle Garden" theatre where in the 1850's Jenny Lind, "the Swedish Nightingale," made her American debut and Lola Montes danced! From 1855 to 1890, it was the United States' immigration depot before Ellis Island was built, and as such, the first ground in America millions of immigrants set foot on. Then, for years it was the New York City Aquarium where Manhattanites could see examples of aquatic life (and the occasional movie corpse).

The Aquarium would not pass muster today for the cramped, indeed life threatening, conditions its inmates were forced to endure - but that in itself is part of the realistic picture of life in the 30's seemingly minor films like these can offer. While the Aquarium interiors were studio recreations, these had to be believable pictures of the world the audiences they were issued to lived in, and we can learn a lot from them about that world as a result. We have come a long way . . . in some ways.

Today, New York's Battery Park grows out from and around the building which beautifully starts of THE PENGUIN POOL MURDERS. The Park contains - directly in front of the former Aquarium - the most eloquent and complete memorial the tragedy of 9/11/01 could possibly have: the "fractured globe" which originally sat in the Plaza between the Twin Towers - now with an "eternal flame" at its base. If you're going to be in New York, don't miss this increasingly meaningful piece of sculpture - but first see its setting as it looked 70 years earlier in delightful PENGUIN POOL MURDERS!