The Devil Plays

A pretty dreadful low-budget murder-mystery which pays little attention to defining its characters. There's a lot of talk, but very little action.

This is a typical mansion murder or cozy mystery, with only four sets: the apartment where the murder takes place, the police captain's office, the low-rent hotel of a hard-bitten show girl and a tea room financed by shady money. I tuned in for the tea room, because collecting tea room memorabilia is one of my hobbies.

The set did not disappoint. It is the Universal "basement restaurant" set (seen in other movies as an Italian restaurant, etc.). Outfitted with a bevy of what seem to be Pretty Little Dutch Girl waitresses and laid out to resemble the Bohemian basement tea rooms of Sheridan Square and Greenwich Village in the 1910s to 1920s, mostly fading from view by the time this was filmed in 1931.

There were some nice deco touches in the show girl's hotel room set as well. .

That was about it. The acting was slow and halted, the actors' mannerisms stylized and stagey, and the plot was totally random.

Writer Jameson Thomas comes into the room to find people standing over a body, discussing who had killed the victim. When he demands to know why they haven't called the police, the corpse stands up. They've being going over a scene in his latest murder novel.

Later, when a corpse does show up, they call the police. When Inspector Thomas Jackson appears in charge of a group of policemen, they don't discuss, they ask questions of the people and give nothing back. As they grow frustrated by all the witnesses who saw nothing and know nothing, Thomas begins to work the situation over in his mind.... and makes some suggestions to the rather contemptuous professionals.

Richard Thorpe certainly knew how to get a good movie out of a decent script and skilled players. It led him from Poverty Row oaters to directing epics for MGM, with some camera tricks to keep costs down. In this one, it's never quite clear when characters are performing, and when they're saying what they are actually thinking. If it seems slow at times, because Thorpe won't cut entrances to get to the meat of the scene I felt my usual impatience with the turgid pacing of Poverty Row shows... or was it a sense that opportunity was slipping away while characters thought? A little of both, I think.

THE DEVIL PLAYS is about what happens when a group of people gather at a mansion to play a game called "Murder". When the clock strikes midnight, the game begins, "deaths" occur, and a mysterious woman lurks about.

Later that morning, the game becomes real when someone is found dead. The police arrive to start their investigation, with a house full of suspects. As the case broadens, the cops go outside of the mansion for clues.

Then, a second murder is committed, literally, under their noses! Making matters worse, the deed was done using the very same weapon... which was in police custody!

How is this possible?

A great old-old school murder mystery, complete with a gaggle of interesting characters, and a big, final revelation. Highly entertaining...

I usually love these old parlor mysteries but this one started with a thud that just got more boring as the film dragged on and on. To say the acting was stiff is an incredible understatement. Thomas E. Jackson played the Inspector with Lew Kelly providing "comic relief" that made you wish the killer would strike again and put us all out of their memory. The doctor, played by an uncredited George "Gabby" Hayes diagnosed that a decanter of water had been drugged by tasting it. The mystery writer/amateur detective ran rings around the cops as expected but was just as useless at solving the crime. The only crime here was the 63 minutes that was stolen from me (no wonder Hayes didn't want to be listed as being in this turkey). I never expect a masterpiece from a Chesterfield poverty row production but most of them at least have a coherent story. I wonder if the screenwriter decided who the killer was or they just drew lots for it 3/4 of the way through the film. There's a lot of movies better than this one. Don't waste your time.