The Moonstone

Despite the hackneyed premise and milieu, the stage was set for a pretty interesting murder mystery. It is a 'gloomy-mansion-on-a-dark-and-stormy-night' movie, which can be very absorbing if done right. It had a good collection of characters/suspects and got off to a good start.

All of sudden came the scientific-drivel denouement, the deus-ex-machina, which was both cynical and anti-climactic. This was the best the author could do? And why the rush to a conclusion? the story is short enough as is. Good performances all around and the production values were very adequate, considering this was a Poverty Row production.

Sorry I can't recommend this one, but I still have a lot of movies left in my DVD collection. On to the next case.

The story is a slightly updated story of the legendary Moonstone gem coming into the possession of a young girl and then disappearing as thieves and assorted others try to make off with it.

The two prints that I've seen of this movie run only 45 minutes, so I'm not certain what the full running time is, or was, but film while seeming rushed at the end, seems to have everything in it. But the biggest problem is that it is rushed. After almost a half a hour of slow building set up the gem disappears and it races through to the end as a police procedural to find the culprit.

The performances are very good and they make watching this brief mystery fun to watch. Definitely worth your time - especially if you're pressed for time. (If you come across the Alpha Video version pick it up since its paired with the equally good Murder at Midnight)

The only similarity I see between this and its namesake is the jewel. The rest is a pretty typical drawing room mystery. It has a pretty decent set of eccentric characters, a love interest, a man in a turban (very exotic, right), and a lot of shenanigans. The carelessness with which the stone, worth a fortune, is treated stops me. The female lead is totally unappealing. She is so dumb that I couldn't care less what happens to her. Her fiancé is a big lunk with no real character. There is some atmosphere of the mansion in the rain. The lights go out and there is a bit of a surprise. Overall, however, it lacks much development and ends in a rather far fetched way.

I'm leery of drawing hard and fast conclusions since I too saw the shortened 45-minute version. The editing appears choppy, especially the last, reveal section. That, plus a fuzzy sound quality didn't help. Anyway, from what I saw, the programmer's a fairly standard dark and stormy night, except no one gets murdered. Instead, it's a stolen gem that breeds the mystery.

Oddly, what I took away from the proceedings was not the plot nor the slam-bang thunder, but two of the greatest faces of the time—von Seyferttitz and Dudgeon. I wanted a scene where they could go nose to nose; that is, if the set were big enough to handle their majestic blades. In fact, to me, vS has an appearance that should have pushed him up the Hollywood ladder of intellectual villains. Then too, I'm surprised John Davidson's exotic Hindu didn't get more time. But his may have been a casualty of the shortened version.

At the same time, I should note the nicely fluid camera work that seems unusual for early talkies still struggling with sound. All in all, from what I saw, it's an interesting, if uneven, time-passer.

Veteran director Reginald Barker -- whose career included several superior William S. Hart Westerns and Thomas Ince's landmark CIVILIZATION -- directed this near the end of his career and he tells the story with a fluid camera and many visual grace notes. Unhappily, the dialogue is not up to the camerawork, but this first sound version of Wilkie Collins' classic mystery is well produced and well worth your time.