Discarded Lovers

Fickle screen star Irma Gladden has a former husband, an estranged husband, both still in love with her, and two lovers, one current. All but the former husband are involved in making her latest movie. She just canned her chauffeur for cause, and the losing lover's wife has confronted her. You know what's coming. A reporter called in by the police chief to help with the case eventually suggests bringing all of the suspects together for a screening of the movie made thus far, thinking there're clues in it. Enough is revealed by implication to cause the murderer to confess, very dramatically.

The movie is an early talkie with lots of dead air, and no music. It could have been a bore, but the dialog is very good as is the acting of J. Farrell MacDonald as Police Chief Summers, Natalie Moorehead as doomed Irma Gladden, and Barbara Weeks as Gladden's secretary. The comedy relief is provided by a police sergeant. Fred Kelsey is good in the role.

The setting of this B mystery is Eminent Studios, and we jump right into the action as spoiled star Irma (Natalie Moorhead) is finishing her latest movie. She is what everyone probably thought all Hollywood actresses were then..vain, haughty, and quite promiscuous. Her husband, Roy D'Arcy, has turned to drink over her escapades, her director/ex-lover's wife (Sharon Lyn) is mad enough to kill her, another lover (Jason Robards Sr.) wants everything kept hush hush, her first seemingly destroyed husband keeps lurking about, and her chauffeur is stealing from her. What a mess...When she's found dead, the only one who acts genuinely upset/shocked is her faithful (or is she?) secretary (Barbara Weeks). It takes a NY reporter (Russell Hopton) to steer the cops in the right direction. Yes, the print isn't so hot (even the titles are missing), but this was entertaining: the look of the early film sets, some pretty corny dialogue ("Some women are too fascinating for their own good") and a rapid pace. Nobody's really awful, as in some early talkies, and Fred Kelsey, an actor who always seems to be the 'dumb cop' in B flicks fills that slot again. If you can take one more 'gather all the suspects' scenario and a Perry Mason moment, it's worth the hour it takes to watch. Being in the public domain, it is ubiquitous on youtube.

While the title may think you are going to see a love story, it's actually yet another B-murder mystery--and the various 'Poverty Row' (i.e., extremely CHEAP) studios made a ton of them. Unfortunately, this is no better than most and abounds with tons of clichés--so much that I can only assume the writer was a 6 year-old!

When the film begins, you see some actors performing a scene before the camera. Surprisingly, this opening shot is exceptional-- especially for 1932, as a roving camera used like this was surprisingly inventive. So, at least the cinematographer wasn't an idiot. What follows is typical of almost all the murder films--you see an ill-behaved person and an angry person. Soon a murder occurs and the cops arrive. And, guess what...one of the cops is a complete moron! Soon bodies start piling up and I KNEW there'd be another when one of the characters phones the police to say he KNOWS who the murderer is--a sure sign that he's about to assume room temperature!!! If these don't sound like enough bad clichés, the film ends with the worst--the killer jumping out and announcing he killed the people!!!

The bottom line is that you can surely do better with most every B- murder film! Try a Charlie Chan or Boston Blackie film--at least they are murder mysteries with interesting characters and a few less clichés!

It's about twenty-five minutes into this one-hour mystery before Natalie Moorhead is discovered murdered in her car. The earlier scenes are devoted almost exclusively to introducing the audience to the many suspects and making sure we know their motives for wanting her dead. She is a movie star who walked to the top, mostly on the bodies of the men briefly in her life.

Once the murder is discovered, the fun is scheduled to begin. There's Fred Kelsey, playing a flatfoot so dumb that you wonder why he's on the investigation with J. Farrell MacDonald, who is playing his usual smart, energetic man of this period. Overall, there's where you can see the weakness in this Poverty Row B picture: the pacing is off and while performers like MacDonald, Russell Hopton and Barbara Weeks can establish their own rhythms, lesser lights cannot. It's a common failing of the ultra-cheap Bs of this period.

Plot-- Half-way through a murder occurs and the expected whodunuit finally sets up; then suspects sort of emerge in blurry fashion; leading to an unexpectedly imaginative ending.

The movie's opening remains a grabber, but from there on the narrative's basically downhill until the upside climax. The opening scenes on the set of a movie are interesting and played straight unlike the rest of the run-time. I liked seeing how the actors took direction whether they wanted it or not, and how easily they could slip in and out of character. But from there the storyline soon tumbles into a jumble that fails to set up the murder mystery in effective fashion. There's no atmosphere, nor much intrigue, nor are the suspects drawn up in distinctive fashion. Worse, comical character Delaney takes over as a plain silly detective. No wonder actor Kelsey made a career alongside the Three Stooges. Humorous detectives were, of course, a common feature of mystery shows at the time, but Delaney turns humor into a train-crash of burlesque.

For some of us, an upside are the revealing ladies fashions of this pre-Code period (1931). The gowns are striking along with the 4-wheel tin flivvers I wish we saw more of. Then too, the murder solution is imaginatively done, tying the film-making scenes from the first part into revealing the killer's motivation in the last part. Too bad more of such skill doesn't drive the flick as a whole. Lastly, don't expect much outdoor action; it's a parlor-bound hour, always cheap to produce for low budget indies. Anyway, my advice is to skip this meandering programmer unless the only alternative is a politician's speech.