Well Deserved Praise

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Here's the scenario: costume party in progress, body found. Scream. Detective arrives. Questions behind. Romantic couple on the road, decide to go back. More questions asked. Couple asked why they left. Suspicions arise. Accusations and hints of motives are made. Servants indicate they hated the victim. Suspects go to bed and can't sleep. Questions continue the next day. More clues, more motives. Gather suspects together and reveal exactly what happened. Will the guilty party give themselves up without pulling out a gun? You'll find out in under an hour in this stagy, often awkwardly acted melodrama.Forgotten matinee idols Charles Starrett and Shirley Grey are the romantic leads with a cast of actors who either speak very slowly or overly emote or pose or just bellow. Claude Gillingwater, best known for Shirley Temple movies, is perhaps the most familiar member of the cast, with the rest of the cast extremely obscure. The actress playing the housekeeper may look like Mary Gordon (and sound like like her), but is not. This is a film for severe classic film fans only. Others will be excruciatingly bored.

The body of millionaire Steven Kester is discovered murdered in the closet by the guests at a lavish costume party being held at Kester's stately country mansion. It's up to shrewd and sarcastic crime novelist Michael Tracy (a spirited and likable performance by Charles Starrett) to figure out the identity of the killer. Director Richard Thorpe, working from a witty and compact script by Andrew Moses, relates the absorbing story at a brisk pace, maintains a firm sense of taut narrative economy throughout, and further spices things up with a pleasing sense of sassy humor (Tracy's barbed exchanges with the police are especially sharp and amusing). Moreover, the able cast play their parts with real zest: Starrett's lively acting keeps the picture humming, the fetching Shirley Grey brings tremendous appeal to her role as Kester's feisty grand daughter Jean, John Wary is suitably gruff as the hard-nosed Inspector Crofton, and Dorothy Revier does well as the touchy Mrs. Pritchard. M.A. Anderson's crisp black and white cinematography makes neat use of fades, wipes, and dissolves. A hugely enjoyable item.

Charles Starrett is a writer of murder mysteries who gets involved in—yes, a murder mystery. Nothing too original in Green Eyes, but a fair assortment of suspects and intriguing clues help maintain interest. Once again, it's a murder in a big old house in which nearly all of the film's action occurs. The event which sets the story in motion is the murder of the house's owner, one Steven Kester, during a costume party, and it's quickly established that his guests, his employees and even his granddaughter are not particularly sad to see him go. Even his butler can't find anything nice to say about him:Inspector Crofton: "What kind of a man was Mr. Kester to work for?" Lenox the butler: "He was a Simon Legree, sir. It's been most difficult to put up with him these past 20 years."For the first half of the film, John Wray as the inspector barks out a good half of all the dialog spoken as he rounds up clues and lays out the facts and motives. In the second half, we see more of Starrett as he quietly investigates while more noisily presenting a rather foppish front to most of the group. Shirley Grey and Dorothy Revier, as the two women involved in the case, are given just enough screen time to hint that their characters could contain some interesting depths; but alas, a 70-minute movie holds limited space for developing character studies. Nice touches: the goofy getups sported by the guests in the opening costume party and ensuing interrogation; the "green eyes" of the title; and a clever closing bit with Starrett at his typewriter.

During a masked party Stephen Kester is found dead in the closet of his room, three stab wounds in his back. Suspicion falls on everyone at the party, especially Kester's granddaughter and her fiancée who fled the house after disabling all of the other cars and cutting the phone lines. As the police investigate they are shadowed and helped along by a mystery writer.Good Long Island based murder mystery novel keeps you guessing until almost the end of the film. Its not until a few knots about motive are untangled that you'll know who did it and why. Its a neatly plotted mystery that I think works better for lifting some of the dialog from the novel since it seems to move the film along at a good clip, even if most of the actions are simply in wide circles around the mansion. The cast is full of B-movie stalwarts who all fill their roles with a good amount doubt as to their possible guilt or innocence. Even nominal lead Charles Starrett as Michael Tracy, the mystery writer, manages to keep you guessing as to whether he did it or not.A solid and very enjoyable mystery. It maybe light and fluffy but it will entertain you.