Up for Murder

This could have been a sweet little drama. It had all the ingredients to be a gripping melodrama but despite having a talented cast and good imaginative director it ended up being a turgid, unemotional and lifeless bore.

Although Monta Bell could be a very impressive director, you'd never guess that from seeing this. You'd think that as he wrote this and based it on one of his own former silent films, he'd have put all of his artistic flair into making this his special pet project. Curiously, this demonstrates none of the skills you'd expect from Bell. Besides some excellent photography (from Universal's ever reliable Karl Freund) this really drags. It's so slow - and without any background music which accentuates the periods when nothing is happening, it feels even slower. It's quite a somber story but the total lack of lightness and humour (excluding Frank McHugh's rather irritating attempts) gives this a very bleak feel.

A major flaw is the casting of the lead role. I don't mean Genevieve Tobin who's superb in this and makes it at least watchable, it's Lew Ayres. Given the right role, Lew Ayres could be a profoundly sensitive and moving actor but this was not a role Ayres was suited too. Even early in his career he could successfully play really different parts (he's surprisingly believable as a gangster in DOORWAY TO HELL) but here he's basically playing the same depressed part as in ALL QUIET.

For this story to work you've got to believe in the romance. Ayres is a nobody who at first shouldn't quite believe that someone as absolutely stunning as Genevieve Tobin could be interested in him (neither can we!) but he just seems to accept it. Were he an arrogant upstart that might make sense but he's not. When it sinks in that she does seem to love him you'd think he'd be grinning from ear to ear but he looks like his cat has just been run over.

I disagree however with Danny at Pre-Code about Tobin's character. I think it's a superbly well written, fully developed and credible character. Her 'Myra' has real depth which Tobin implicitly imbues into her performance without being too obvious. You can really understand why she would fall for someone like Ayres' naïve cub reporter.

Despite of Tobin's performance, the disjointed direction and the stupid way the story which starts off as credible develops stops the whole thing gelling together. And as for the ridiculous ending - it might have worked in the unsophisticated silent days but this is meant to be a grown up film.

It's frustrating to see something which starts off with such promise fizzle out like this does.

"Up For Murder" is a tame but fairly interesting pre-code picture from Universal. Its main value is for its acting performances, especially Genevieve Tobin, society page editor for a big-city newspaper, and Lew Ayres, a mail room go-fer who gets promoted to cub writer. It's all as the reviewers above describe it, with Tobin as a woman of the world and Ayres as an infatuated youth. Purnell Pratt is the paper's publisher and Frank McHugh is a writer/drunkard, a part which becomes tiresome midway through.

At a shade over an hour the picture is not burdensome but is not as tense and suspenseful as its title sounds. The storyline itself is straightforward but the ending is contrived and somewhat fatuous; murder in any form is normally pretty serious business. I almost fell off my seat watching the happy ending, as the story to that point was dramatic and true to life, and it brought my rating down a peg or two.

Capitolfest, Rome, NY, 8/16.

Bing with The Rhythm Boys recorded a song for the movie Many a slip. The song was not used but inserted as background in this movie. Others have already covered everything else and the story in itself.

To reach the requied number of characters I can mention other lost Crosby movie songs. March of time featured Bing singing Poor little G- string but the movie never was released however the sound recording still exist. Bing also had a song filmed for the movie Those three french girls, unfortunately cut out and lost. Bing did appear for a fem minutes singing in Reaching for the moon. They did also keep Bing singing in a party scene of Confessions of a co-ed.

Naïve newspaper office boy Lew Ayres (Robert) lives with his mother Dorothy Peterson and dreams of becoming a reporter. He gets his wish but is then ordered to escort the newspaper's Society Editor Genevieve Tobin (Myra) to an important social function. His life is changed both in a good way......and in a bad way.....

It's a straightforward story that stretches the imagination a little. Richard Tucker (Herk) puts in a good effort to cover up the murder story that plays out but I think there are serious consequences for him at the film's end. Lying in court is frowned upon. The film takes us down the path of loyalty to the newspaper first. Forget the truth, that can be fixed at a later date. It's still the same today, especially the 'forget the truth' part.

It's well acted by all and Genevieve Tobin is the most memorable. Lew Ayres is slightly too naïve but he does okay portraying an innocent lovesick young man. Frank McHugh (Collins) plays the office drunk and puts a bit of depth into his character which was a good move or he would have been incredibly annoying. This allows him to just about carry off the irritating drunkard role.

Newspapers are always up to tricks. I know of one UK well-regarded paper that published lies in order to protect the daughter of the owner or editor or whatever high up position this guy held. The story was printed that her boyfriend was climbing up the outside of her building to be with her as a romantic gesture when tragedy struck and he fell. The reality was that she had locked him in the apartment and he had climbed out of the window to escape from her. Don't believe what you read!

This was directed by Monta Bell, the cameraman was Karl Freund and it starred Lew Ayres and Genevieve Tobin. The story was no great shakes, as cub reporter Ayres falls in love with Tobin, the paper's society editor and mistress of the publisher. When Ayres and the publisher confront each other in Tobin' swank apartment, Ayres kills him by accident. The paper's lawyer decides to cover it up to save the paper's reputation, and blame Ayres without any mention of Tobin. They go along with this nonsense.

After the death, Ayres is out wandering the street, and the lighting gets very Gemanic, I remarked that in Afraid to Talk, Freund shot sequences in primitive but definite noir fashion. Here, a year earlier, the lighting style refers to older works. Has anyone written anything on the position of Karl Freund in film noir, or do they concentrate on his work for I Love Lucy and how to light William Frawley?

Given the problems with the story logic and some clangorous and ill-timed lines, I don't find this one particularly great, but it is certainly more interesting on a technical level and Tobin is great.