The Studio Murder Mystery

Studio Murder Mystery, The (1932)

*** (out of 4)

Fifth film in the S.S. Van Dine series has an actress filming a murder scene when someone shows up with a real knife killing her. Dr. Crabtree (Donald Meek) and Inspector Carr (John Hamilton) arrive on the scene where the suspects appear to be the woman's rival or perhaps her boyfriend (Robert Middlemass). This is a pretty good entry in the series that manages to have some charming moments, some funny one and these save the movie because the actual mystery isn't the greatest. The best scene in the movie happens right after the murder when the director is unhappy saying the scene wasn't realistic enough and then he finds out that the actress really is dead. The actual mystery of the film is fairly simple to solve but it's rather interesting that two key points in the film are now real life issues with certain cases. The "gloves must fit the killer" is of course from O.J. and we also got chloroform playing a part in the film, which is from the more recent Casey Anthony case. With that said, this short has enough going for it to make it worth checking out especially if you're a fan of these early mysteries. Both Meek and Hamilton are fun this time out and the supporting players aren't so bad either.

The Studio Murder Mystery finds that intrepid team of sleuths Donald Meek and John Hamilton trying to solve a mystery committed right on a sound stage. Before a murder scene is done, a real murder of actress Thelma Tipson is committed and with a usual group of closed area suspects, it's a matter of eliminating the right one.

This series was written by S.S. Van Dine the author of the Philo Vance and rather than have the elegant private detective come in and do the police's work for them, Van Dine kind of makes it up to the cops by having slow, but methodical John Hamilton actually solve the crime.

Of course he can't really do it without forensic science and that's where Donald Meek comes in. At this time Philo Vance was normally being played by William Powell over at Paramount and Etienne Girardot was an integral part of that series as the coroner Dr. Doremus. This series at Warner Brothers was like they eliminated Vance and left Girardot and Eugene Palette as Sergeant Heath to their own devices.

Hamilton and Meek seem to get the job done.