Grief Street

During the 1930s and 40s, Hollywood made one murder mystery after another--and almost all of these were low-budgeted B-movies. Some, such as the Charlie Chan and Falcon series were very good and the rest were a rather mixed lot. Few were excellent--but the films ran the gamut from awful to pretty good. "Grief Street" is one of the less distinguished murder mysteries--mostly because the writing was a bit too broad and obvious. The worst of it was having an annoying and offensive stutterer in the film for comic relief. It's hard to imagine that a multiple Oscar-winning guy like Walter Brennan would begin his distinguished career with crap like this!

As far as the murder goes, it's all laid out at the beginning of the film--perhaps too well. In other words, there isn't much suspense--you KNOW the guy is going to get killed and the basic formula is there with little to differentiate it from the rest apart from the god-awful stuttering guy and a few other broad performances! Not a total waste of time but an imminently skippable film, that's for sure.

Thank God this was only 60 minutes! The film drags about a man mysteriously killed and a girl that keeps getting notes warning her of another murder coming. It all takes place backstage on Broadway and you never know who did it until the end ... and you never care.

The mystery solution does not make sense either. Who locked the door from the inside? How could someone possibly tie a necktie around someone's neck and tighten it really tight in a few seconds and not be seen doing it?

The only good portrayals are by the smaller roles. The leads in the film are awaful.

Horribly acted. Irritating characters. Skip it!

This, my dear readers, is about one of the worst movies I have ever seen, and I've been watching them for over forty years. Director Richard Thorpe is a well-known name because he later went to MGM and directed the likes of Elvis Presley in Jailhouse Rock, and anyone who can get Presley to say "Those ain't tactics, honey, it's just the beast in me," without bursting into laughter has to be a director who can handle the very worst of actors, right? Well, Grief Street is full of the very worst actors who called Hollywood home. The guy playing Sgt. Jardine (James P. Burtis) seems to be well oiled throughout the entire picture.

This is a murder mystery of the old school, concerning a journalist who seems to want to solve a crime before the police do. And the police let him. Sound believable so far? An actor whom everybody wants dead is murdered in his dressing room and there are about half a dozen potential suspects. Even the doorman, who is sat right outside the actor's room, doesn't see anybody going in, other than the actor himself. How does that work? Well, our journalist friend, Jim Ryan, sets about solving the case so the police don't have to. Furthermore, because the running time of the film is mercifully short, Ryan has to make a rather tenuous link in order to realise suddenly who the killer is.

If watching absolute crud is your thing, you're going to love Grief Street. If watching a group of actors destroy a script makes you weep, then perhaps you ought to give Grief Street a body swerve and find something that is acted...I was trying to find a synonym for acted well, but really you might want to find a picture that is just acted, that would be a start. x

This flick fulfills the need for diverting entertainment. The petite actress playing Jean Royce is perfectly sweet, charming, and guileless. The newspaperman is the all-around good-guy. The police sergeant, a comic relief guy, practically steals the show. There's even another fellow who works in the newsroom who has a severe stutter that is played for laughs. As for the mystery story aspect, it is halfway decent. And check out the petite chick's penthouse apartment furnished in chic art-deco style. There's nothing here to bog down the film ; it's to-the-point-ness really works in its favor. It goes down easy, like a glass of 7up.

This second feature directed by jack-of-all-trades director Richard Thorpe -- he would go to Metro as a B movie director and graduate to big spectacles, based on his ability to get a cheap performance out of actors like Robert Taylor -- shows Thorpe with warts and details of care.

This locked room mystery has its major weak points, like stagily-read performances from all hands involved, but it also has its strengths, rocking, as it does, between a comedy drama in which the cops spend their time playing craps, and an early police procedural, as one cop uses routine and careful deduction to crack the case. And while Thorpe can't raise a good performance, he does take care of his visuals, as in the scene set in an alley, where he sets the wind machines to gently blowing Barbara Kent's hair.

Although not a particularly good movie, it is interesting as a transitional piece, as silent stars try their hands at talkies, and a style of mystery different from the usual Sherlock Holmes or Philo Vance pointing out what is obvious after the fact.