Un cri dans la nuit

If you like murder mysteries the you've seen this movie before, probably at least a hundred times. The plot is the typical a group of people are staying at the home of a rich man who turns up dead. The police arrive to flush out the killer and its quickly revealed that everyone wanted the guy dead. Its an early sound version of the plot line you've come to know and love. Spicing things up is the addition of an Oriental fortune teller played by Misha Auer. The introductions to most of the characters come during a reading he is doing for one of the people staying at the house. Its a unique twist to the proceedings. Auer himself ends up at the house and it is during a gathering for a séance that the murder occurs.

Despite my low rating this is not a bad movie. The cast is good the mystery serviceable. The problem is that time has not been particularly kind to this movie. Its pacing is now rather slack and it seems to just go on and on. The action is a bit static. The film being a relatively early sound film is very talky at times. The detective once he appears is capable of chattering on and on a good deal. The flaws are not fatal, but since this is a path I had been down before numerous times I found that I wasn't enjoying it as much as I would if I wasn't a mystery fan.

If you're curious try it, though be warned its the type of thing you've seen before.

Apparently this was an early "talky" and that might account for the long pauses between speeches and the stilted acting. It's a typical who done it, with the long list of suspects. There are two points where the head detective stops the show and explains who each of them is and what they did. It has the last drawing room thing which is kind of fun, actually. I wouldn't want this on a regular basis, but it's kind of cool. The plot involves a murder during a séance (which the detective pronounces "see ons." There is a swami and a silly detective who is continuously being called Watson instead of Watkins. He is incompetent and no help. It's as if the police trained in a guy for his comedy relief. There are a couple gangsters (one named Lefty Louie), and a bunch of other saps, including a virginal secretary with horn rimmed glasses and a prissy suit. Anyway, they are all kept in place so one has to have done it. It has a somewhat satisfying conclusion. As with most of these stories or books, we need to keep rethinking things. It's an OK film with an interesting cast.

The lights are turned out during a seance, When the lights come back on, Phillips Smalley is dead with a knife in his back. Detective Captain Jack Mulhall comes to investigate and soon discovers that almost all present had motives to kill him and, given the dark, had opportunity. So who did it?

It's a typical cheap mystery directed by Armand Schaefer and not, alas, a well constructed one. Although I figured out whodunnit before it was revealed, vital clues were not shown to the audience until Mulhall begins his summation -- with all the suspects in the room, natch -- which is not playing fair with the mystery aspect of the movie. Also, despite some good lighting by William Nobles -- his first movie was a Mary Pickford vehicle, but he soon sank into the ranks of B cameramen and never recovered -- is there much in the way of interesting action. Instead, it's a nearly constant stream of talk, pausing only to show a clue to the mystery.

Sound and picture quality are pretty shaky, but this thing is already ninety years old, so i guess we're lucky to still have it in any form. Stars Jack Mulhall and Helen Foster. Opens with swami (Mischa Auer) seeing the future. Then we're watching the pool party, where Vivien invites everyone to a séance. The edits are all pretty awkward and choppy. The lights go out, and of course, someone is moidered at the millionaire's house. His wife and daughter have been hanging out with shady characters, and of course, everyone there is now a suspect. The acting is hokey, the directing is hokey, and the story itself is silly too. Looks like the whole thing was filmed at the director's own house, over a long weekend. More bodies start piling up. Something odd must have happened to actor James Burtis (Detective Watkins) .. he did mostly uncredited roles, died young at 46. It's showing on the Moonlight Movies Channel... meh. Directed by Armand Schaefer. Written by Norton Parker. Aint no thang...

Getting old can surely help a movie's entertainment value, as this low-budget very traditional murder mystery offers ready-made camp content. I attended innumerable premieres of extreme flops over the decades, and it's a fact that people are often quite forgiving many years later when nothing (money) is on the line -I would cite "Heaven's Gate" which I saw in NYC at its disastrous first public showing as a prime example.

The almost constant array of cliches and corny elements (most notably attempted comic relief of the cop detective's sidekick insisting over and over and over "Don't call me Watson!" burlesque routine) are fun over 90 years after they were recorded. And what's wrong with having fun at the movies?

For me, the barrage of clues, a gimmick still very much in vogue (see: Daniel Craig in that new and popular series of "Knives Out" films, which by the way is the weapon of choice in "Sinister Hands") is fun, and I was able to use them to guess the killer correctly quite early on. And the lengthy list of suspects, played by nonenties (with the exception of the sinister swami played by the great Mischa Auer) was quite easy to follow via adequate stereotyping. Nothing could be cornier than the arrogant behavior of the police captain/detective (Jack Mulhall) and his gathering everyone in a room to confront them and explain everything leading up to fingering the killer!