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Director Leslie Fenton had more acting roles than directing roles, but he sure worked with some of the biggies as an actor. and was married to the delicious Ann Dvorak. In Tell No Tales, Melvyn Douglas is the editor of a newspaper that's being shut down, but he thinks he can solve one last big crime to save the paper. Co-stars Gene Lockhart, Louise Platt, and Douglass Dumbrille. some running gags to keep it light. Cassidy (Douglas) helps Ellen (Platt) hide out while he tries to solve the riddle. this one goes all around the mulberry bush.... through a black funeral, through an opera. it's actually quite good. we go along for the ride. and the whole time, we're never sure who's telling the truth. plays now and then on turner classics channel.

This is a trail movie, the Hitchcock MacGuffin being a $100 marked bill. Where did it come from? Turns out it passed through many hands. Each party on the trail is the center of increasingly interesting scenes until, for meanness, Gene Lockhart bangs the base drum. Talk about noir, the film grows darker and darker, both ways. For me this film is an eye opener as it proceeds from procedural adventure to the interesting seaminess of a flirtation with the allure of serious film noir.

In the 1930s and 40s, Hollywood made tons of mystery films in which private citizens outwit the cops and solve crimes...usually murders. There is a certain sameness to the plots and at least "Tell No Tales" offers a few changes to this formula...the best of which is having it star Melvyn Douglas--a marvelous and versatile who is one of my favorites.

When the story begins, a newspaper is celebrating its 75th anniversary. Unfortunately, just after the festivities begin, the editor, Michael Cassidy (Douglas) learns from the paper's new owner that he's shutting it down....selling it because he never really wanted to own the business, just make a buck splitting it apart!

Naturally Michael is in a funk and he ends up in a local bar. Instead of getting wasted, however, he stumbles upon something which MIGHT help him keep the paper going. One of the bills the bartender had given him turned out to be from a ransom! So, Michael decides to investigate it on his own instead of just passing on this information to the police.

As usual, Douglas turns in a nice and apparently effortless performance. I appreciate how his newspaper editor character differs from the abrasive characters usually played by Lee Tracy (he played newspaper men A LOT).

Unlike most murder mystery B-movies, this one is from MGM...a big studio. While the big studios did make Bs, when it came to murder mysteries, the smaller studios glutted the market....and too many of these films from Monogram, Republic and PRC are inferior in most ways. Here, however, the writing is nice, as is the music, supporting characters...heck, everything is quite polished and nice here. Well worth seeing, though clearly one of Douglas' lesser films.

Michael Cassidy (Melvyn Douglas) runs the old respected newspaper, The Guardian, like a family affair. The new owner Matthew Cooper orders it to shutdown in favor of his own tabloid, The Evening Record. Cassidy turns down his pick of a job at the Record. With a clue to a famous kidnapping, he makes a final stab at saving his beloved paper with the hot new story in a final edition. He sneaks pass the police to retrieve kidnap victim Ellen Frazier (Louise Platt) who is under police protection.

The plot is a straight line of one stop to another as Cassidy tracks down the journey of that $100 bill. It's not the most imaginative plot structure. It is good enough to leverage a good performance and a nice crime thriller. The movie is able to maintain its kinetic motion all the way through. It's not really a mystery to solve. It does need some action to punch it up. It's a little flat but it's pretty good.

Suave newspaper editor Melvyn Douglas proudly runs the Guardian, a noble institution that has served the public for 75 years. But look out—tabloid owner Douglas Dumbrille has just purchased the Guardian and intends to kill it to increase his own rag's circulation. Seems like a serious newspaper melodrama....

But the picture quickly morphs into a detective story when sharp- eyed Douglas stumbles on a $100 bill that he recognizes as a marked bill used as ransom money in a recent high profile kidnapping case. He sets out to trace the bill's journey, hoping it will lead him to the kidnappers.

The search for the bill leads Douglas through an interesting series of vignettes….Each clue he follows leads him to a new stop where his visit has a strange and surprising effect (an imminent wedding is abruptly called off, for example). A post-funeral family gathering is the film's most somber and serious moment.

Douglas also manages to connect with schoolteacher Louise Platt, who witnessed the kidnapping. Although the police have her school pretty well surrounded specifically for her protection, clever Douglas manages not only to sneak into the school and find her, but to talk her into sneaking out with him to go chase the crooks….

Okay, so it gets a little far-fetched at times. However, despite some silliness the picture is not only entertaining but fascinating—even if it's not particularly good or believable, somehow you care what happens. Melvyn Douglas and Louise Platt are both easy to watch, and the supporting cast is full of fine performances from MGM's great roster of character actors.