|
At the archery range of benign elderly professor Dillard's (Alec
B.Francis) estate, a young man is found murdered, and there is no clue
left but a letter by the murderer calling himself Bishop. Of
course, everybody's under suspicion soon enough, including Dillard's
hunchbacked neighbour Drukker (George F.Marion), the chess champion Pardee
(Charles Quatermaine), who just happens to hang around Dillard'S place all
the time, and young Sprigg (Carroll E.Nye), a friend of the family. The
police however is quick to arrest the deceased's friend Sperling (Delmer
Daves), who was seen fighting with the victim shortly before the murder.
But eventually they have to let Sperling go again because he actually has
an alibi for the time of the murder. Philo Vance (Basil Rathbone), who has
been called in by the DA (Clarence Geldart), has never believed in
Sperling's guilt anyways, but the longer he investigates, the more his
suspects drop like flies, all killed by the Bishop, and the longer
this goes on, the more evidence points into the direction of Arnesson
(Roland Young), the Dillard's assistant and the fiancé of his beloved
niece Belle (Leila Hyams). Eventually, Vance even receives a clue that
seems to incriminate him. Shortly after Belle finds the same clue, she is
kidnapped. In the finale, Vance moves in for the kill and questions
Arnesson before Dillard's very eyes, and Dillard's defense soon starts to
crumble. But while Vance tries to get Arnesson, Dillard poisons
Arnesson's drink, but not without Vance noticing it, and all of a sudden,
Vance moves in on Dillard and accuses him of the series of murders, which
he has committed to pin everything on Arnesson, whom he accuses of having
tried to steal the person he loved most, his niece Belle. After having
confessed everything, Dillard drinks the poisoned drink he prepared for
Arnesson and dies on the spot, this way evading his murder charges. Belle
on the other hand is freed from where her uncle had kept her and reunited
with Arnesson. Extremely talky and slightly boring murder
mystery, a film that resembles more a stageplay than an actual movie
because of its abundance of dialogue and relative lack of action. The
problem though is not the fact that the characters seem to be doing little
other than talking, but the fact that the dialogue as such is not all that
good and lacks a little edge, which in turn might have to do with the fact
that the film's plot is a bit too far-fetched to really convince and
overpopulated with a few many suspects to really keep track of the case on
hand. The fact that quite a few of the castmembers (Basil Rathbone
excluded of course) overact terribly doesn't make things any better. In
all, certainly not the worst film I have ever seen, it at least features a
good surprise ending (even if that is far-fetched as well), but also not
something one needs to see.
|
amazon.com
amazon.co.uk
amazon.de
eThaiCD.com
