The Moonstone

The only similarity I see between this and its namesake is the jewel. The rest is a pretty typical drawing room mystery. It has a pretty decent set of eccentric characters, a love interest, a man in a turban (very exotic, right), and a lot of shenanigans. The carelessness with which the stone, worth a fortune, is treated stops me. The female lead is totally unappealing. She is so dumb that I couldn't care less what happens to her. Her fiancé is a big lunk with no real character. There is some atmosphere of the mansion in the rain. The lights go out and there is a bit of a surprise. Overall, however, it lacks much development and ends in a rather far fetched way.

Despite the hackneyed premise and milieu, the stage was set for a pretty interesting murder mystery. It is a 'gloomy-mansion-on-a-dark-and-stormy-night' movie, which can be very absorbing if done right. It had a good collection of characters/suspects and got off to a good start.

All of sudden came the scientific-drivel denouement, the deus-ex-machina, which was both cynical and anti-climactic. This was the best the author could do? And why the rush to a conclusion? the story is short enough as is. Good performances all around and the production values were very adequate, considering this was a Poverty Row production.

Sorry I can't recommend this one, but I still have a lot of movies left in my DVD collection. On to the next case.

Veteran director Reginald Barker -- whose career included several superior William S. Hart Westerns and Thomas Ince's landmark CIVILIZATION -- directed this near the end of his career and he tells the story with a fluid camera and many visual grace notes. Unhappily, the dialogue is not up to the camerawork, but this first sound version of Wilkie Collins' classic mystery is well produced and well worth your time.

Those who have read the classic book by Wilkie Collins should not expect anything similar. Other than a jewel called the Moonstone, that is. The 1933-34 years saw movies that still suffered from the silent film hangover, and some that showed more naturalistic acting. This has some of both, leaning towards the stiffness of the silents. As noted by others, the actress playing the lead is so foolish that it's difficult to care that she's had her jewel stolen. And then there's the scene where she refuses to have her belongings searched for the jewel, which is never explained. And the reveal comes out of nowhere, with no 'detecting' at all. Watch 1933's The Kennel Murder Case for far superior acting and plotting. This movie just doesn't have the right pieces in the right places. It tries, but never really pays off. Still, I did watch it to the fast-arriving end, so I can't complain too much. Worth watching as long as you don't expect too much. Watch it on a dark and stormy night when you have nothing else to do.

I'm leery of drawing hard and fast conclusions since I too saw the shortened 45-minute version. The editing appears choppy, especially the last, reveal section. That, plus a fuzzy sound quality didn't help. Anyway, from what I saw, the programmer's a fairly standard dark and stormy night, except no one gets murdered. Instead, it's a stolen gem that breeds the mystery.

Oddly, what I took away from the proceedings was not the plot nor the slam-bang thunder, but two of the greatest faces of the time—von Seyferttitz and Dudgeon. I wanted a scene where they could go nose to nose; that is, if the set were big enough to handle their majestic blades. In fact, to me, vS has an appearance that should have pushed him up the Hollywood ladder of intellectual villains. Then too, I'm surprised John Davidson's exotic Hindu didn't get more time. But his may have been a casualty of the shortened version.

At the same time, I should note the nicely fluid camera work that seems unusual for early talkies still struggling with sound. All in all, from what I saw, it's an interesting, if uneven, time-passer.