Premiere

It's the opening night of a new Parisian revue, and there's the usual fuss and excitement: the woman who comes to beg for her job back, the worry that something will go wrong with the show, the murder that happens as the curtain rises. Fortunately police inspector John Lodge is on hand. Can he winkle out the secrets and solve the murder before the show is finished?

It's a 68 minute movie, twenty minutes in set-up, and the remainder is divided between the show -- which seems to consist of two new songs and a lot of chorus numbers, half of which seem to be danced to "That's My Weakness Now" -- and Lodge doing detective stuff, like asking questions and taking fingerprints. THe opening is all right. The show is shot amid cyclopean sets with a movie camera, and the investigation.... well, it's hard to say if the crime plot interferes with the musical numbers, or the musical numbers with the crime plot. It's a very interesting idea for a mystery, based on an Austrian movie. The execution is not as interesting.

During the 1940s films like these were a staple.In fact this film resembles the rather better known "Murder At The Vanities" from Paramount.We have a large number of suspects with all sorts of motives and opportunity for murdering the victim.In the meantime the show progresses.It is a musical.The numbers all resemble numbers directed by Busby Berkeley at Warner's,only on a slightly smaller scale.The dances although imitative are nevertheless quite good.The murderer is revealed in the final minute of running time and of course is the person you would be least likely to chose.At 71 minutes a very entertaining film with a very reasonable cast including Hugh WilliAMS AND Edward Chapman.