Sun 23 Sep 2018
Archived Movie Review: SUPER-SLEUTH (1937).
Posted by Steve under Films: Comedy/Musicals , Mystery movies , Reviews[4] Comments
SUPER-SLEUTH. RKO Radio Pictures, 1937. Jack Oakie, Ann Sothern, Eduardo Ciannelli, Alan Bruce, Edgar Kennedy, Joan Woodbury. Director: Ben Stoloff.
An insufferably conceited movie star who plays a genius detective on the screen begins to mock the police department’s efforts in catching the perpetrator of a series of “poison pen” murders, and as a result, not surprisingly, ends up being the target of the killer himself.
Pretty much a ho-hum effort, both as a mystery and as a comedy. Jack Oakie never seemed to catch the public as a comedian, and if you take this film as an example, it’s easy to see why. His portly arrogance and general dimwittedness certainly turned me off.
September 23rd, 2018 at 3:11 pm
I enjoyed it myself, but I have a fondness for Oakie’s comedy persona. I think RKO remade it at least once, maybe twice.
September 23rd, 2018 at 4:25 pm
Walter Albert liked it too. Here’s a link to his review:
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=1120#comments
Be sure to read the comments also, in which he says:
‘…this 1937 RKO release was one of the high points of [the] convention…’
I might be wrong about this movie.
September 23rd, 2018 at 4:22 pm
I like Jack Oakie too. Have a look at him in Call of the Wild or much later a film with Tony Curtis and Debbie Reynolds, The Rat Race.
September 23rd, 2018 at 8:07 pm
Oakie was better as a sidekick than star, but I found this one okay, if not what I might have hoped for. In later years Oakie did fairly well at playing the darker side of his oafish screen personality. Like many comic actors his timing meant he could play drama well.