Fri 25 Feb 2011
A Movie Review by Stan Burns: MURDER BY INVITATION (1941).
Posted by Steve under Mystery movies , Reviews[3] Comments
MURDER BY INVITATION. Monogram, 1941. Wallace Ford, Marian Marsh, Sarah Padden, Gavin Gordon, George Guhl, Wallis Clark, Minerva Urecal, J. Arthur Young, Herbert Vigran. Director: Phil Rosen.
This Monogram mystery (calling it a B movie would be kind) is another entry in the “dark old house” genre. Reporter Bob White (Wallace Ford) investigates a series of murders at a spooky old house full of secret passages, sliding pictures, greedy relatives, and eyes looking secretly into the room.
I kept expecting to see Abbot and Costello walk through the door at any moment. Rich Aunt Cassandra’s relatives dragged her into court and tried to have her declared incompetent so that they could gain control of her fortune, but the judge found in her favor even though she likes vinegar on her apple pie.
So she invites all her relatives spend a week with her at her country mansion so she can decide which one will get the bulk of her estate. But no sooner do they arrive at midnight than one of them is stabbed to death (“She must have seen The Cat and the Canary,” quips White’s secretary when she hears about the midnight invitation).
When reporter White arrives with his secretary and photographer he is welcomed into the murder scene (yes, a fantasy film…). No sooner does he arrive than the body disappears and another one appears in its place, and then that one disappears also.
(In an aside Wallace Ford addresses the audience and says that you know you are past the halfway point in a mystery movie when the bodies have disappeared — and this movie is more than half over).
This is a really goofy movie, not to be taken seriously, but fun to watch. At the end as Bob White starts a long, long kiss with his secretary, the camera pans over to Eddie the photographer and he says something like “The Hays Office isn’t going to like this…”
Rating: C minus.
February 26th, 2011 at 5:19 am
The old dark house genre was popular with Hollywood for a lot of reasons, not the least of which it could be done for next to nothing, with a handful of sets, few extras, and built in story elements.
And there is a huge variety of them — the original Leni CAT AND THE CANARY, the silent version of Merritt’s SEVEN FOOTPRINTS TO SATAN (with a screenplay by Cornell Woolrich among others), Priestly’s OLD DARK HOUSE which gave it a name, THE 13TH GUEST with Lyle Talbot and Ginger Rogers, George Marshall’s antic and brilliant MURDER HE SAYS, the Bob Hope CAT AND THE CANARY and GHOSTBREAKERS, Abbott and Costello’s HOLD THAT GHOST, ARSENIC AND OLD LACE, TOPPER RETURNS, THE SMILING GHOST, TOMORROW AT SEVEN, SEVEN KEYS TO BALDPATE … to some extent even AND THEN THERE WERE NONE and THE NINTH GUEST.
But I can’t help thinking what appealed to the studios was the confined sets, emsemble casts, and quick shooting schedules. That and the almost guaranteed box office appeal.
It always throws me a bit to look back at these films and see Wallace Ford as a leading man — I was so used to him either as the buddy of the hero or later the old coot (his career high point the death scene in the Turkish bath in T-MEN), that when I started to see some of the films he played a romantic lead in it took some adjustment.
February 26th, 2011 at 5:35 pm
That’s a wonderful list of Old Dark House movies, David —
— or should that be “… a list of wonderful Old Dark House movies.” I’ve seen and enjoyed almost all of them, both as a kid and later on, as the adult I’m supposed to be now.
Not when I’m watching movies like these.
As for Wallace Ford, I’m working my way through the box set of THE DEPUTY, in which he played town marshal Herk Lamson. He was a grizzled old coot in this one too, though I think for only the first season.
In one episode I watched recently, he let a prisoner escape and was ready to call it quits as a lawman until he was able to redeem himself later in the same show.
You’re right. It did seem a long way from this, even though he’s very good, from his days as a leading man, despite his films being low budget B’s.
February 26th, 2011 at 8:32 pm
Ford did have some better roles if not as the lead, as the male ingenuine in BEAST OF THE CITY, third billed behind Walter Huston and Jean Harlow, but most of his leading roles were in films like this.
By the time this one was made he might be a lead at Monogram, but over at Universal he was comedy relief to Dick Foran in THE MUMMY’s HAND.
Re the OLD DARK HOUSE films it sometimes seems as if half the films Bela Lugosi and George Zucco made fit that bill. Between horror, mystery, comedy, and comedy mystery any real list of them would go on forever, from REMAINS TO BE SEEN (old dark apartmment — replete with secret passages) to remakes of THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL and 13 GHOTSTS.