Wed 10 Jun 2009
BERMUDA MYSTERY. 20th Century-Fox, 1944. Preston Foster, Ann Rutherford, Charles Butterworth, Helene Reynolds, Jean Howard, Richard Lane, Theodore von Eltz, Jason Robards (Sr). Based on a story by John Larkin. Director: Benjamin Stoloff.
While there is more comedy and romance in this detective story, there is still enough mystery involved to make this strictly B-movie interesting and enjoyable, not to mention that the comedy and romance have a lot to do with it, too!
It’s also a private eye novel, straight from the pages of a 1940s Dime Detective magazine, which is to say slightly wacky and screwballish in nature, and of course there’s nothing wrong with that, either. Preston Foster is the PI, a guy named Steve Carramond, and his client is a girl (naturally), the vivacious dark-haired Constance Martin (Ann Rutherford), and the niece of one of the members of a tontine who has recently died under suspicious circumstances.
A tontine is one of those agreements in which the last surviving members of a group of individuals who’ve put money into a large pot, so to speak, split the proceeds. Not that the word tontine is ever mentioned in the movie, but it’s explained well enough for everyone in the audience to know exactly what’s going on.
Well, more or less, that is, as any resemblance to actual police procedure goes by the boards fairly quickly. Did I mention that the story takes place in New York City? I should. Only the opening scenes take place in Bermuda, where Connie’s uncle lived. The other members all live in Manhattan, or they did, until they start to die off shortly before the end of the group’s agreement.
Here’s where the romance comes in. Steve is hired a little under protest, as he’s supposed to be getting married the next day, but when Connie winks at us (the audience) we know precisely how that’s going to come out. Which it does.
How the movie comes out, and who the killer is, is another matter altogether.
In a tontine story, there are so many possible choices as to who might be the killer, a story writer really doesn’t have to be all that clever — just keep the action going, which it does, fairly nearly foot-on-the-floor and non-stop all the way.
Ann Rutherford, who was only 24 when she made this movie, is a charmer all the way, having already finished a long career through her teens as Polly Benedict in the Andy Hardy movies. Preston Foster, besides doing the heavy lifting, also does “put upon” very well in the comedy and romance end of things.
(For more on director Benjamin Stoloff, as well as some early discussion of Bermuda Mystery, see the comments following Walter Albert’s review of Super-Sleuth, which he also directed.)
But don’t get me wrong. In spite of the usual nonsense that accumulates in B-movie mysteries like this, there actually is some cleverness involved. You may scope it out as easily as I, or maybe even easier, as I wasn’t really trying. Mostly I was just enjoying myself.
PostScript. In those earlier comments following Super-Sleuth, here’s what David Vineyard had to say about this movie in particular:
“Though it isn’t listed as such at IMDB, Bermuda Mystery is a remake of the Crime Club Mystery film The Last Warning based on Jonathan Latimer’s The Dead Don’t Care. Foster played PI Bill Crane in the Last Warning. The mystery is something of a Thin Man style romantic mystery, though in some ways so is Latimer’s novel.
“Bermuda Mystery has a screenplay by John Larkin (Quiet Please, Murder!) who wrote several good screenplays and directed a bit too.”
June 11th, 2009 at 1:05 am
It strikes me that one reason they used the title The Bermuda Mystery was a reference to the Bahamas murder of Sir Harry Oakes and the subsequent trial of his son in law that became a cause celebre for much of 1943 and even pushed the war off the front page.
Erle Stanley Gardner went down to the Bahamas to cover the case as a journalist, and the story held everyone’s attention as it unfolded involving everyone from the Duke of Windsor (the former king of England and Governor of the colony — anything to get him out of England with his Nazi ties), the mob in the person of no less than Lucky Luciano, Oakes himself (self made millionaire in the Klondike and much hated with fascist tendencies and labor problems on the island), the fate of legalised gambling on the islands, crooked cops imported from Miami, and Oakes playboy son in law Alfred de Marginy (a minor nobleman and anti fascist).
Then on top of everything else Oakes daughter went to New York and hired famed private investigator Raymond Schindler, who, along with the barrister for the defense, blew the case wide open by what Gardner called ‘the damndest piece of detective work in or out of fiction.’
Though the murder was never solved, Schindler proved de Marginy had been framed by two Miami policemen imported by the Duke of Windsor to investigate the case. In a scene out of a Perry Mason novel Schindler proved on the stand the two policeman had planted de Marginy’s bloody fingerprint on a Chinese silk screen used in the crime. It made world wide headlines and the jury essintially threw the Crown’s case out and virtually carried de Marginy out of their shoulders.
Books on the subject include Who Killed Sir Harry Oakes? by James Leasor, The Mysterious Murder of Sir Harry Oakes by Rachel Bell, and Max Allan Collins Carnal Hours where Nate Heller substitutes for Schindler and Ian Fleming gets thrown in the mix. There is also a mini series Passion in Paradise (1989) with Rod Steiger as Oakes, Armand Assante as the son in law, and Wayne Rogers as Schindler, and a really offbeat film called Eureka (1983 D: Nicholas Roeg) with Gene Hackman as Oakes and Rutger Hauer as de Marginy.
Some still think de Marginy was guilty and others hold Oakes was killed by Luciano’s mob because he opposed legalised gambling in the islands supported by Windsor and other powerful forces. A third theory has him murdered by locals who resented his treatment of them. It remains an intriguing mystery, and in 1944 would certainly have been fresh in many people’s minds. It seems likely that the producers of The Bermuda Mystery were hoping to cash in on any left over interest in the case. It was the O.J. Simpson trial of its day.
Of course, real life being what it is de Marginy eventually divorced Oakes daughter and left the island. He remained a minor celebrity and playboy the rest of his life. But don’t mention the Oakes murder if you ever happen to be in the islands. It’s still a touchy subject.