Murder on the Campus

Charles Starrett is a reporter trying to figure out how a guy could be shot in a bell tower while no one is around. He ends up investigating another murder and an apparent suicide. Shirley Grey plays his romantic interest. Edward Van Sloan plays a criminologist; after all, he has plenty of experience killing vampires. As usual, the cops, led by J. Farrell MacDonald, are imbeciles, and Starrett has to solve the mystery for them. The ending is somewhat clever, although by then, I had figured out who the killer was - but not the method. As a bit of trivia, I had never seen Grey before, only to discover she was born not too far from where I live. MacDonald looks and sounds like William Frawley.

This little poverty row murder mystery has a good basis in its script - A campus could-have-been athlete is a slacker on and off the athletic field, failing in his studies, yet Lillian Voyne (Shirley Grey) seems to have a soft spot for him. This causes some jealousy from reporter Bill Bartlett (Charles Starrett). But then one night when Bill actually drives Lillian to go find said athlete, he is murdered in the campus bell tower just as the chimes have rung. Bartlett is nearby and blocks the only exit from the tower. Yet, when the police arrive, they find the campus slacker dead in the bell tower with a bullet in him, nobody else is in the tower, and there was no place from outside the tower that he could have been shot.

The film keeps things moving, and with fairly good production values, although I can spot a few scenes where the sets have been redressed and reused as different rooms entirely. And there are a couple of other murders that seem to be related to the first one. The problem is, as is common in these lower budget productions, that there are too many characters that don't distinguish themselves from one another, so that when anybody ponders a theory about who did what to who, I had no idea who they were talking about without backing up and rewatching parts of the film.

But the oddest characteristic of this film is that the police just let reporter Bill Bartlett barge in on the entire murder investigation. He tampers with witnesses, steals evidence from police custody to have it examined by a lab he trusts, and encourages a local criminologist to take the investigation away from the police because he has no faith in them, as if he has that kind of authority. If the accused has a good attorney he/she could probably get lots of evidence tossed just because of this busy body reporter breaking all of the rules.

I'd probably give this a 5.5 if that was possible because it is interesting.

Poor casting sinks this vintage murder mystery that generates a modicum of suspense but generally lacks anything worth one's attention.

Charles Starrett makes for a bland leading man, playing a reporter who just happens to be located at the right place to nearly witness a murder of a student up atop a bell tower. He and the cops find the corpse but can't figure out how the unknown killer escaped with no one seeing him. Starrett is so bland I figured he must be the killer himself, but that was wishful thinking on my part.

Talky and dull, the whodunit plods along with wooden performances by the no-name cast. As a coed who moonlights at night singing in a nightclub, Shirley Grey is too old for the role and makes zero impression. Dialogue patter between Starrett and the dogged cop on the case (J. Farrell MacDonald) is uncreative on the order of saying things like "Go jump in the lake".

Movie doesn't pick up steam until the finale, when the murderer explains exactly how and why he did it and there's a bit of excitement, way too late to make up for the sleep-inducing earlier footage.

Shirley Grey is a very popular girl on campus, despite having to work. For that, she's a singer down at a local night club. When a series of murders occur, she winds up as a suspect. But her boy friend, reporter Charles Starrett, doesn't believe she did it. This cuts no ice with chief of police J. Farrell MacDonald, nor his sergeant, Dewey Robinson.

It's a Chesterfield picture, directed by Richard Thorpe. He was slowly climbing his way out of Poverty Row. This means he gets good performances out of a cast that includes Edward Van Sloan, Maurice Black, and Al Bridge.

The problems arise with the issue of uncovering who committed the murders, and why. Miss Grey is an early suspect. She clearly knows things that's she's not telling, which makes her a prime suspect in the eyes of the police, if not of anyone who knows how mysteries like this are plotted. Just once, I'd like to see the girl friend turn out to be the murderer, despite the insistence of her adoring lover. The information is revealed in clumps as they are told to Starrett, with a log monologue to explain method and motives Still, despite problems with the script, it's a good mystery, and the performances are nothing to sneer at.

I guess college isn't quite the way it was in my day. Young men and women living in extravagant suites, in the lap of luxury. They also looked a bit old for college students. This is a bit soporific. It involves a woman who works at a nightclub who is studying for her law degree. Once again, people are kept in the dark about the realities of things. I've seen so many movies where the characters keep things a secret, even when they don't have to. A man has been murdered in a bell tower and there is an investigation. I can see no reason whey the principles in the movie are even suspects, but they are. The detectives and a reporter continually coming in contact as the body count rises. I'm still not sure of the motives and the cover-up. Reputation? Fear? Love? Not sure. It also ends a bit suddenly. I suppose the young woman is going to marry the hunk and give up that nonsense about having a career. It's the thirties; it's the depression. Oh, well.