Cartas de um Ídolo

Well-done B picture with a 'B' cast who are all very competent and put this very mysterious mystery over. I can't even recap the story as it is very involved and convoluted, but a young lady poisons herself and her family spends the rest of the picture trying to solve it.

My title is 'No Fair' due to the resolution of the crime, and it would have an exclamation point if the website allowed it. If you should happen upon it, watch it - and I defy you to guess the murderer.

Shown at Capitolfest, Rome NY, 8/14/21.

******* 7/10 - Website no longer prints my star rating.

I find it amusing that the one other review of this film to date makes a point of referring to it as "no fair." I'll admit the film is not rich in clueing by the standards of Golden Age detective fiction- as with many a Murder, She Wrote episode, the detective is put on to the culprit's trail by the latter revealing knowledge he or she could not have known if innocent- but it's certainly better in its clueing than 90% of whodunit films of its era.

It's an extremely faithful adaptation of Rufus King's The Case of the Constant God, and in my opinion one of the best detective films of the 1930's. Henry C. Gordon is excellent as Lieutenant Valcour (did he have many other leading roles? It's a surprise not to see him as a heavy). And the usually sedate and gentlemanly Ralph Forbes gives an absolutely electric performance as the terrified matinee idol.