Mon 29 Jun 2009
A Movie Review by Walter Albert: THE PENGUIN POOL MURDER (1932).
Posted by Steve under Mystery movies , Reviews[5] Comments
THE PENGUIN POOL MURDER. RKO Radio, 1932. Edna May Oliver, James Gleason, Robert Armstrong, Mae Clarke, Donald Cook, Edgar Kennedy. Based on the mystery novel by Stuart Palmer. Director: George Archainbaud. Shown at Cinevent 19, Columbus OH, May 1987.
The Penguin Pool Murder is based on the popular Stuart Palmer Hildegarde Withers series and was the first of three films to star the redoubtable Edna Mae Oliver as the spinster amateur detective.
I thought it a very appealing film indeed, but when I mentioned my enjoyment of the film to a friend he observed that he had erased it from a tape, expunging this “poorly paced” Withers/ Piper collaboration, but preserving for posterity (and me, perhaps, at a later date) a “superior” later entry in the series.
I liked the film for the fizzy chemistry between Edna Mae Oliver and Inspector Piper, played with his usual engaging asperity by James Gleason, and what seemed to my bemused eyes to be a nicely paced comedy-mystery with some Oscar-worthy histrionics by a talented penguin.
But I must confess that when it comes to Edna Mae Oliver, I am a patsy in the throes of an unrequited passion. My favorite Oliver performance is in John Ford’s Drums Along the Mohawk, where she plays a feisty widow putting Indians to rout with a broom and a stentorian voice until an arrow terminates her terroristic cavorting.
(The only contemporary actress I can compare her to in the effect she has on me is pint-sized Linda Hunt, who conveys more intelligence and sympathy with a look than most actresses do with a pageful of dialogue. I enjoyed her unanchored — by the script — performance in Silverado, where amid the clutter of this entertaining shoot-’em-up [and down], she displays a purity of character and demeanor that raises most of her scenes to a level to which little else in the film aspires.)
As for Penguin Pool Murder, however, I will delay my definitive judgment on it until I have seen the other Oliver/Gleason collaborations in the series.
June 29th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Was there ever a better job of casting than Edna Oliver as Hildegarde Withers? Or Gleason as Piper for that matter. If only she had gotten to do the movie based on Craig Rice and Stuart Palmer’s “Once Upon a Train” instead of Marjorie Main (Mrs. O’Malley and Mr. Malone — though James Whitmore was a fine Malone).
I agree with you, Walter. Penguin Pool is a classic. The others are good, but that penguin… However, skip the Zazu Pitts entry, and don’t look too hard for the made for television one with Eve Arden and James Gregory — as good as the casting sounds.
June 29th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
This is a delightful movie.
Edna May Oliver – and Linda Hunt – are both great performers.
Years ago, I saw much of “The Plot Thickens” (1936) one of the later entries in the Withers series. It seemed fun at the time. Would like to see it again.
June 29th, 2009 at 9:44 pm
I have a question. It’s been a while since I’ve seen this movie, so I’m relying only on memory here, but isn’t this the movie in which Inspector Piper proposes to Miss Withers at the end, and she accepts?
They never got married in the books, and I don’t think the proposal was mentioned in any of the later movies, so maybe it’s my memory that’s faulty?
June 30th, 2009 at 5:35 am
Steve,
It’s been a while – but I think that both book and movie of THE PENGUIN POOL MURDER end with the proposal and its acceptance. Later Withers novels recount Withers changing her mind, with some vague rationale that “marriage would be a mistake”. The pair sure do socialize in ways that look like “dates” in later stories. They love to go out to dinner, especially at little Italian restaurants.
June 30th, 2009 at 10:11 am
That’s interesting — that the proposal and acceptance may have occurred in the book, too. If so, I’d totally forgotten that. It’s been way too long since I’ve actually read anything by Stuart Palmer, much less THE PENGUIN POOL MURDER, and I’ve always enjoyed his work.