Murder in Greenwich Village

A society girl (Fay Wray) is suspected of murdering an artist whose brother is a notorious racketeer (Marc Lawrence). In her pursuit of an alibi, she inadvertently implicates a struggling advertisement photographer (Richard Arlen) .

Now they must keep up the appearance of being engaged as a bumbling detective snoops around, and their initial distaste for each other blossoms into romance ... but misunderstandings and that murder threatens to break up their union ...

The title is rather misleading - well, there's a murder but it isn't the main focus, there's not much or any detecting and the identity of the killer isn't unravelled by the main protagonists, who are Fay Wray and Richard Arlen. Throughout the whole film they are arguing with each other, then slowly fall in love ... basically, it's more of a screwball romantic comedy and it's not a bad one. Fay Wray stands out in her performance, though her chemistry with Richard Arlen, who isn't that likeable, isn't sparkling much.

This is a lively and extremely amusing romantic mystery film, with an excellent script by Michael L. Simmons (about whom nothing seems to be known but his credits), full of countless superb witticisms. Everybody obviously had a lot of fun making this, the energy level is high, and you can hear the champagne bubbles in the background. Despite the title, the fact that there has been a murder is of only incidental significance. This is basically a boy-meets-spoilt-rich-girl-spats-quarrels-makes-her-behave film fading out on a lingering kiss of true love, with lots of amusement and crazy characters throughout. There is a goofy thicko of a policeman who continually says: 'I hope I am not protruding', which he believes is correct English, and is constantly teased by everyone. Fay Wray is the girl, excellent at pouting, tantrums, love pangs, lingering looks, and the whole caboodle. Richard Arlen Senior is a witty and sporting leading man, driven crazy first by exasperation and later by love (and sometimes they are the same thing). In the background there is a vague 'whodunnit?' but frankly nobody seems to care, as they are too busy having fun. This film has all the froth and fizz of something from the 1920s, probably because the Depression had just ended, and everybody could enjoy themselves for a couple of years before the War in Europe was seen to be inevitable. Albert S. Rogell does a good job of directing, as he did with the excellent 'Tight Shoes' (1941) a few years later. The character actor Raymond Walburn does an excellent job as 'the Senator', who was not a senator despite his phoney reminiscences of strolls with president McKinley, in between drinks. Everybody in the film is what used to be called a 'wacky character', and this is a bit of light entertainment with plenty of genuine wit.

Fay Wray climbs out of a window in her slip while Richard Arlen watches admiringly from the street. He takes her to his studio, where he and his cohort of eccentrics run an advertising studio on the cheap. Meanwhile, in the apartment whence she came, an artist is murdered. When the police come to question the people in the studio, Arlen and Wray pretend to be engaged to give her an alibi.

It's an attempt to merge screwball comedy with a murder mystery. While there are some funny bits -- particularly Raymond Walburn as a down-and-out politician who alternates talking about McKinley, drinking and posing -- it is a poor screwball, because the central characters lack eccentricity and chemistry. There are dumb, malapropism-spouting cops, and Marc Lawrence gets a good role as a hood who's the brother of the murdered man, but Albert Rogell's lugubrious pacing bogs down an interesting script. There are some fine performers present, including Thurston Hall, Leon Ames and Marjorie Reynolds, but they are curiously ineffective.

"Murder In Greenwich Village" has an amazing start, with a half-undressed Fay Wray acrobatically jumping from one building to another! The rest of the movie, however, is a routine, forgettable, and grade-B programmer. Wray is as gorgeous as ever; Marc Lawrence is very convincing as a hard-boiled gangster. ** out of 4.