THE MYSTERY MAN. Monogram, 1935. Robert Armstrong, Maxine Doyle, Henry Kolker, LeRoy Mason, James Burke, Guy Usher. Director: Ray McCarey.

   I don’t know about you, but Robert Armstrong is the only name in the list of credits above that I recognized before watching this fairly mediocre crime drama — and even after watching it, for that matter. I didn’t recognize a single face, other than Armstrong’s.

   He plays Larry Doyle in this one, one of those brash reporters always at odds with his managing editor, even when he’s given a $50 bonus for the help he gave the police in solving their last case for him. The $50 disappears on a bender with the boys, and he ends up on a train to St. Louis rather than Chicago.

   In Chicago he befriends a young girl who is also out of funds, and together they scam a hotel, pawn a gun, watch a robbery taking place (committed by a notorious criminal know as “The Eel”), grab the loot, get blamed for the killing, go back to the pawnbroker who turned them in, and nab the Eel, making headline news. The end.

   Problem is, Armstrong was 45 when he made this movie, with a receding hairline, and Maxine Doyle was a mere slip of a lass and only 20 years old, young enough to be his daughter. The romance between the two is as unlikely as the screwy crime story the perpetrators of this movie put together.

   But what this still mildly amusing movie does do is remind you of the days (before my time) when a cup of coffee and three doughnuts would cost you 20 cents, and a young lady could have all of 10 cents on her and not be able to pay for it. This is where Larry Doyle comes in.