Murder by Rope

With the time machine set at 1936, we find ourselves on the set of this typically inconsequential quota quickie in which people in evening dress get throttled or shot without anyone being unduly alarmed.

The first ten minutes promise something quite different, with a lot of painstaking verbal exposition - first in a jury room, then at Scotland Yard - by a large uncredited cast who we never see again, but give much better performances than the waxworks with whom we have to spend the rest of the film. What they have been so earnestly discussing is the macabre case of the Laughing Murderer, which would have made far more interesting viewing than what we are then served up with for the next fifty minutes, set in one of those enormous country houses everyone lived in in pre-war movies.

It's all pleasant enough to sit through, the settings being designed by the veteran art director John Bryan, who later won an Oscar for his work on David Lean's 'Great Expectations' (1946). Female lead Sunday Wilshin (later a producer at the BBC) glides comfortably into these surroundings resembling a handsome piece of living Art Deco sculpture, with a mannish chin and blonde bobbed hair offset by a glittering, figure-hugging thirties evening gown in which she consumes endless cigarettes and sweeps about the house and grounds along with the rest of the cast, who make endless entrances and exits like characters in a Whitehall Farce.

A 33 year-old Wilfred Hyde-White looks and sounds almost exactly as he did as an old man, playing a crime writer who eventually solves the whole messy business in the final two minutes in a fittingly preposterous climax.

Is everyone, like me, used to seeing Wilfred Hyde-White as a white-haired, aristocratic gentleman, usually in some sort of government job in comedy? If so, you'll be surprised to see him in a serious role as a dark-haired author of true-crime and mystery books in this movie.

A maniac who sends warning letters to his victims and then strangles them with a rope is found guilty and hanged. Some time later, some one else does the same thing. The trial's judge, Philip Hewland, is threatened. Of course, this means he must hold a dinner party, during which there are sinister goings-on.

Director George Pearson had a long history in British movies, going back to 1913 as a writer and director for Pathe. Since the coming of sound, he had been relegated to cheap quota quickies. This, alas, is one of them, using all the standard tropes of British mysteries. It's also very talky, with only a few quick visual glosses, none of them offered in an interesting fashion. His screen credits would end with three or four more films over the next three years, then silence, except for a TV interview. He would die in 1973.

The first 12 pithy minutes suffice to set in motion the aftershocks of the death penalty pronounced on London's infamous Laughing Murderer. Cue montage of newspaper display boards. After a tense moment in the jury room, when "guilty but insane" is momentarily contemplated, there's a bit of harrumphing procedural at Scotland Yard, complete with tweeds and pipe.

Long-lived character actor Wilfrid Hyde-White, young in 1936, plays a mystery writer who gets active at the country house of Mrs Mulcaire, a silly society hostess. The guests wear impeccable evening wear, the servants perfect livery. Everyone's a type, including the cadaverous butler and his cute hard-boiled side-kick maid.

The marvellous D. A. Clarke-Smith plays Hanson, the handwriting expert, with an elegance redolent of his 1888 birth year. Baffling subplots abound which won't be resolved to anyone's satisfaction, including a jewelry robbery, but who cares? A blackmailer is exposed and penniless young love triumphs.

The action is both theatrical and cinematically savvy, but shows just how far Hitchcock wrenched this stageworn material from its melodramatic source. Frankly, I love it as is.

George Pearsons career was distinguished.he was a pioneer of British cinema.In 1930 he had produced "Journeys End" in America.However within 6 years his career came to an end.He was directing quota quickies such as this,and only had 2 more films to make.the film starts quite enterprisingly.The story of a trial is told in newspaper billboards.After the jury deliberations we go to the court for sentencing.However the scenes are cleverly shot so that we only really see the actors and not the courtroom to save money on sets.Subsequently an attack on the hangman is made in the dark and we can see the shadows on the wall.All very expressionistic.Then we end up at a country house as with so many murder mysteries of the time.The direction is mainly concerned with grouping of characters,the acting and writing are at times abysmal.On one of the murders since you cant see the body you have to go through the male characters on screen and then work out who is missing.The fact that the only familiar actor is Wilfred Hyde White may give a clue as to the poor standard of acting.All in all a sad way on which to be ending a career.