Mon 21 Mar 2016
A Movie Review by David Vineyard: FROM HEADQUARTERS (1933).
Posted by Steve under Mystery movies , Reviews[6] Comments
FROM HEADQUARTERS. Warner Brothers, 1933. George Brent, Margaret Lindsay, Eugene Pallette, Robert Barratt, Hugh Herbert, Henry O’Neill, Hobart Cavanaugh, Ken Murray, Murray Kinnell, Kenneth Thompson Screenplay by Peter Milne & Robert N. Lee (his story). Director: William Dieterle.
From Headquarters is a fast paced murder mystery taking place at police headquarters where Lt. Jim Stevens (George Brent) is investigating the murder of Broadway playboy Gordon Bates (Kenneth Thompson), who was shot with one of the antique guns in his collection. Complicating things is the fact Stevens is in love with Lou Winton (Margaret Lindsay), who overthrew him for Bates, and her younger brother is a suspect.
What makes this stand out, aside from the players and director, is that there is an actual decent mystery here with well-placed red herrings, actual scientific detection, solid police work, and intelligent policemen, even Sgt. Boggs (Eugene Pallette, Sgt. Heath from the Philo Vance films), who may jump to a few conclusions but is no dummy.
Suspects include the girl and her brother, the butler Horton (Murray Kinnell), safecracker Muggs Manton (Hobart Cavanaugh), and antiques collector Anderzian (Robert Barratt), with detection by Stevens and Boggs and Inspector Donnelly (Henry O’Neill) as well as various police technicians. Ken Murray, best known to most of us for his color home movies of Hollywood celebrities is a wise-cracking reporter, and Hugh Herbert an annoying bail bondsman with sharp eyes.
The investigation takes place over a single day and reaches its climax with a murder in police headquarters itself, but along the way each suspect gets his or her moment, the focus twists and turns as false leads and new evidence emerge, and if the ending isn’t exactly a surprise (in fact it is literally the oldest cliche in the book) it is all so well handled and played you will likely not care.
Frankly this one is better written and thought out with a better plot than most so called mysteries on television today, the police behaving as professionals, competent even when they aren’t terribly smart. With crisp pacing, decent writing, sharp direction, and good performances this little film is smarter and a better mystery than many of its better known cousins.
I’ll even go so far as to say I don’t think you would have been unhappy if you had read it in a book, and even many film mysteries based on books can’t make that claim.
March 21st, 2016 at 6:39 pm
A bit of a shock to see Harry Woods as a police officer before he found his true calling as a B-Western villain.
March 21st, 2016 at 10:53 pm
I *think* I may have taped this one on a VHS tape when it on TCM. One of these days I’m going to have to go through those old tapes. Believe it or not, some are more than 20 years old, and they still play well.
If I don’t have it, or if I decide not to wait until I find it, this one sounds like my kind of mystery movie.
March 21st, 2016 at 11:28 pm
Warner Archives has From Headquarters out on MOD-DVD.
Should you decide to get it that way, be sure to watch the trailer, featuring “The Voice Of CRIME!” (HOOOOOH-HAHAHAHAHAAAAAH!)
Honest.
March 22nd, 2016 at 2:01 pm
Thank you for an excellent review!
This is very much a good movie: one of the best Hollywood murder mysteries. Its use of Scientific Detection by the police is especially notable.
March 22nd, 2016 at 2:53 pm
For once the scientific detection is accurate and not of the science fictional variety. It only tells the police so much, a couple of times it is contradictory and has to be explained by brainstorming by the police and technicians, and it is shown as a process not miracles from test tubes.
There are little details like the officer who specializes in cracking safes and opening locks for the department rather than relying on a crook, or the third degree of Lindsay that Brent’s character regrets but doesn’t interfere with until they know what they need to know, that reflect someone doing at least a little research.
Granted, Brent’s character is that educated upper class policeman beloved of American and British detective fiction in the era, but he is much tougher than most of the breed, and even when he clashes with Pallette’s character over Lindsay and her brother he never treats him as comic relief or looks down on him or fellow policemen with disdain.
This one fits in a neat little notch all its own between the classic murder mystery, procedural, and hard-boiled. There are elements that would not be out of place in a Philo Vance or Ellery Queen mystery as well as business that wouldn’t be false to Hammett or Chandler. Despite being about the murder of a playboy with an antique weapon you wouldn’t have been overly surprised to find this in BLACK MASK or DIME DETECTIVE. It even manages the favorite bit where the hero confronts the real killer alone and quietly after everyone else thinks the case is solved and the murderer under arrest in a neatly underplayed scene.
The murder in the police station is well handled too, a grim tough little moment that could easily have appeared in a Hammett or Chandler story.
March 23rd, 2016 at 8:50 pm
I may just have to grab this one. A little pricey given my budgetary constraints at the moment (not being in the US renting isn’t an option for me) but you make it sound very tempting.