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Muriel (Iris Adrian) seems to be some sort of maneater (not in the
literal sense): She has divorced her first husband Campbell Snowden (Harry
Holman), but keeps him close by so he can make her expensive presents
(which he does, too), she his driven her second husband Harry (James
Eagles) to insanity (literally) so he was sent to an asylum, but she still
lives in his family's house, where she has already charmed Harry's brother
Tom (Barry Norton), and besides all that she is already blackmailing a
gangster, Gus Colletti (Noel Madison) - and than, the night after a party
at Harry's family house, she is found stabbed to death, Snowden - who
stayed for the night - is found beaten to death, and Harry, who has just
escaped from the asylum, is shot from the house's roof by the butler
(Wilson Benge) and is suspected to be the murderer. At least that's what
everybody believes, everybody but next-door detective Holt (John Miljan)
that is. Holt soon starts his own investigations that eventually get him
at odds with gangster Colletti, who gets seriously injured in a carchase,
and before he passes on, he confesses to the two murders, and the case
seems solved ... but is it? Of course it isn't, Colletti has killed
Snowden alright, but he was bribed by Harry and Tom's uncle Reuben (Oscar
Apfel) to confess to murdering Muriel as well - after all he had a motive
and he was going to die anyways -, but Holt can soon prove that Muriel was
in fact killed by Anne (Betty Blythe), Reuben's sister and the mother of
Tom and Harry, who didn't want Muriel to destroy her family even more.
Holt lets Anne know that he knows what she did, but decides on letting her
off the hook to not destroy her family. And as a thank you, she eventually
commits suicide. Irene Ware plays Holt's love interest, James P.Burtis
his sidekick. For the most part, this is a rather swiftly
moving and entertaining, if overly convoluted and not always totally
thought through murder mystery. The thing that rather bothered me though
was the solution. Why indeed did Holt let Anne off the hook? After all,
she was a cold-blooded murderess who killed another woman just to save the
family honour. The whole thing looks as if rich people are allowed to do
that, and at least in my book, that's pretty wrong and also a rather
unsatisfactory solution. Granted, maybe the novel (which I haven't read)
offers more insight into the ending, but as it is, this spoils the fun
more than just a bit. A pity rather, as teh rest of the movie is by no
means bad.
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