Fri 4 Jul 2014
THE KING MURDER. Chesterfield, 1932. Conway Tearle, Natalie Moorhead, Marceline Day, Dorothy Revier, Don Alvarado, Huntley Gordon, Maurice Black, Robert Frazer. Director: Richard Thorpe.
People who read this blog on a regular basis are a lot more likely to recognize some of the actors and actresses who appeared in this movie, but I have to admit that until now I hadn’t heard of any of them. One I’d have liked to have seen more of in the film itself is Dorothy Revier, who had a long career in the silents before this one, as well as for another five or six years afterward.
Unfortunately she had the misfortune of playing the blonde gold-digger (and blackmailer) who ends up (not surprisingly) being the first murder victim no more than 10 or 15 minutes into the movie.
Given her rather shady way of making a living, in more ways than one, there is a long list of would-be killers, the sorting out of who might be the real one makes for a surprisingly entertaining 60 minutes or more. Even though talkies hadn’t been around for very long when The King Murder was produced, the people who made seem to have known what they were doing, even with the budget restrictions they must have been working under.
Don’t get me wrong. The movie certainly shows its age, and the method used to kill Miriam King and an unfortunate police officer is awfully creaky, if not downright impossible. But for a murder mystery made in 1932, you can do a lot worse.
And as a note in passing, the original review in Variety suggested that the movie is based on the 1923 unsolved Manhattan murder of Dorothy King, a model and nightclub hostess who may also have been a blackmailer. It was one of two similar murders dubbed “The Butterfly Murders,” both victims drawn to the glamor of Broadway, only to end up dead. If you’re interested, you can read more about it here.
July 5th, 2014 at 8:26 am
Dorothy Revier made five films with the words “Scarlet” or “Red” in the title, not to mention “Sin’s Payday” and “Sinner’s Parade”. I’ve only seen one of her films, “The Iron Mask”, a Three Musketeers adventure where played glamorous but evil villainess Milady de Winter. She made two early Frank Capra films I’d like to see, “The Donovan Affair” and “Submarine”.
Conway Tearle was an archetypal stage and silent-screen leading man. He was famous as Ben-Hur on stage. And was reportedly the highest paid film actor at his peak. There seemed to be a California law that he had to appear in a tuxedo. I’ve only seen him in silents “Stella Maris” with Mary Pickford, and “Black Oxen”, a really odd romantic melodrama with strange science fiction overtones. It’s also one of the film films where a critic is a good guy and the romantic lead.
July 5th, 2014 at 1:21 pm
Thanks for the additional information, Mike. As far as being the leading man of the movie, Conway Tearle was just a man in a suit, as far as I was concerned, but I’d like to see Dorothy Revier in more films myself. Two added pluses that I didn’t mention were Natalie Moorhead and Marceline Day, two ladies who had larger roles to play and who were memorable in their own way, too. Both are names I’ll look for now.
July 7th, 2014 at 3:26 pm
Tearle was a fairly well known leading man, and I think the first man to portray Sherlock Holmes on television very early on.
Mike may be right about the appearance in a tux on film though. He was very much a stage actor and I thought usually stiff in films.
Mike, wasn’t the King case loosely the basis for Anthony Abbott’s About the Murder of a Nightclub Lady? I know Abbot used real cases in at least a few Thatcher Colt adventures.
July 7th, 2014 at 3:41 pm
Marv Lachman talked about some of Abbot’s books and their relationships with real life cases, but Night Club Lady wasn’t one of them:
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=26421
I found a long review of Lady online, and the resemblance to THE KING MURDER is awfully slim. Don’t know what that means re the King murder itself:
http://onlydetect.wordpress.com/2010/06/21/anthony-abbot-about-the-murder-of-a-night-club-lady-1931/
July 14th, 2019 at 11:31 pm
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