Absolutely Brilliant!

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

This has been the premise of many a murder mystery, and this tale of Broadway (as it is subtitled) is as close to life in New York's theater district as Chesterfield Pictures was to an A studio in Hollywood during the early day of talkies. A lengthy stage scene ends with only two of the three actors seen on stage taking their bows, and it is obvious that the couple on stage are not Lunt and Fontanne. The leading man, obviously past his prime, is a hateful egomaniac who is founded strangled in his dressing room with the windows and door locked. Everybody seems to have a motive, such as the cleft chinned leading lady (not very pretty in a close-up), the ex-wife, the non-bowing co-star, and an Eve Harrington like newbie who ends up assisting the detective in trying to solve the crime. My sympathy goes out to the theater door man who tells the soon to be dead actor what for and gives the best performance in the film.I wonder what made the writers of this entertaining but extremely far fetched murder mystery think that they could write a film about the Broadway stage. Maybe Broadway outside of New York City, but the play within the play just seems really wretched. There's a stuttering character that just becomes more aggravating than Roscoe Ates (almost an impossible task) while the actor playing the leading man/victim makes John Barrymore's has-been lothario in "Dinner at Eight" seem like Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Dorothy Christy, later a co-star in Leon Errol comedy shorts, plays the ex-wife while Lillian Rich is a bit too masculine looking to pass as a Broadway femme fatal. Barbara Kent as the young girl is a weak link. Production values aren't bad, but Hollywood has done much better jobs than this dramatizing life upon the wicked stage.

During the 1930s and 40s, Hollywood made one murder mystery after another--and almost all of these were low-budgeted B-movies. Some, such as the Charlie Chan and Falcon series were very good and the rest were a rather mixed lot. Few were excellent--but the films ran the gamut from awful to pretty good. "Grief Street" is one of the less distinguished murder mysteries--mostly because the writing was a bit too broad and obvious. The worst of it was having an annoying and offensive stutterer in the film for comic relief. It's hard to imagine that a multiple Oscar-winning guy like Walter Brennan would begin his distinguished career with crap like this!As far as the murder goes, it's all laid out at the beginning of the film--perhaps too well. In other words, there isn't much suspense--you KNOW the guy is going to get killed and the basic formula is there with little to differentiate it from the rest apart from the god-awful stuttering guy and a few other broad performances! Not a total waste of time but an imminently skippable film, that's for sure.

By the humble standards of Poverty Row, this is a first-class mystery thriller. The script plays fair as to the murderer's identity and his or her modus operandi. Fast-moving Richard Thorpe has directed with a sure hand – I love the way he moves the camera back into the stalls for that startling trick opening – making excellent use of his players and sets, while cameraman Mil Anderson has contributed appropriately atmospheric lighting. Diminutive but gorgeous Barbara Kent plays the heroine with just the right blend of sparkle and mystery. Admittedly, the movie is slightly let down by comic relief James P. Burtis, who tends to over-do his earlier scenes but becomes less out-of-key aggressive as the movie progresses. John Holland is a bit too stolid as the hero, but Lafe McKee gives a fine account of the stage doorman and although he is way down the cast list, Raymond Largay is on screen constantly and certainly impresses as Police Captain Blake. Dorothy Christy's role is small, but she makes an impression in her brief appearance, while Walter Brennan fans will be surprised to find their hero in a comic role as a stuttering newshound. By the humble standards of Chesterfield, production values are quite impressive, as this one was shot at Universal Studios (presumably at night) and made excellent use of that studio's standing sets. Available on an excellent Alpha DVD.

This second feature directed by jack-of-all-trades director Richard Thorpe -- he would go to Metro as a B movie director and graduate to big spectacles, based on his ability to get a cheap performance out of actors like Robert Taylor -- shows Thorpe with warts and details of care.This locked room mystery has its major weak points, like stagily-read performances from all hands involved, but it also has its strengths, rocking, as it does, between a comedy drama in which the cops spend their time playing craps, and an early police procedural, as one cop uses routine and careful deduction to crack the case. And while Thorpe can't raise a good performance, he does take care of his visuals, as in the scene set in an alley, where he sets the wind machines to gently blowing Barbara Kent's hair.Although not a particularly good movie, it is interesting as a transitional piece, as silent stars try their hands at talkies, and a style of mystery different from the usual Sherlock Holmes or Philo Vance pointing out what is obvious after the fact.