Really Surprised!

Brilliant and touching

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Second entry in the Hildegarde Withers series sees teacher Withers (Edna May Oliver) discovering the body of a murdered fellow teacher in her school. After the police arrive, led by her beau Inspector Piper (James Gleason), they find the body has disappeared. So they investigate and eventually find the body in a particularly gruesome place for a 1934 movie. Now it's up to Hildegarde to ferret out the murderer.As with the last Withers film, the real treat in watching is not with the mystery itself as much as Oliver's enjoyable performance and her banter with Gleason's Piper. Oliver's actually even funnier in this one than in the first movie. I think this is my favorite of the series. It's got a quick pace and lots of funny lines. The murder mystery part is pretty good too. Love the part where Withers explains the school's fire escape to Piper. Little stuff like that fascinates me when I watch older movies. There's even a diagram with directions!

Gossip, intrigue, jealousy—and murder? It's all happening in the dark old elementary school where Hildegarde Withers instructs the children by day and keeps an eye on her colleagues after school. But the murder mystery is secondary in this film; the real fun here is watching Miss Withers and Inspector Oscar Piper team up for another round of professional discourtesy and friendly insults—with, just by the way, a murder investigation thrown in.Hildegarde and Oscar (as they have grown close enough to call each other) are of course played by the great Edna May Oliver and James Gleason. The verbal interaction between the two is delightful (Oscar: "Well, we caught him quicker than I thought." Hildegarde: "Almost anything could be done quicker than you think, Oscar."). The physical interplay between the two is just as much fun to watch—sometimes subtle, sometime broad, consistently mischievous. (The scene where they search classroom closets—Oscar opens a door and peers in, Hildegarde noses and squirms her way in around him, he pretends to shut the door on her—is just hilarious.) The rest of the cast is fine; it's your basic array of suspects, more or less. Edgar Kennedy does lend notable support as an assistant detective. Poor Officer Kennedy—he gets conked on the head early in the picture and winds up in the hospital, then later in the movie is set up as bait! And of course no one listens to his protests….My favorite Gleason line (to Oliver, of course): "Just because you found the body, you think you're Mrs. Sherlock Holmes!" Good fun for fans of great character actors.

At the end of "The Penguin Pool Murder", Edna May Oliver and James Gleason discover their affection for each other, and it is implied that nuptials may be afoot. Here, when she is first seen, Miss Withers (Oliver) is reading an inscription from Mr. Piper thanking her for her unsolicited help in "The Penguin Pool Murders". Obviously, wedded bliss for the "September Couple" has not happened. Piper does not realize he is about to be solicited by her again, this time for a murder which takes place right in her place of employment. A young music teacher is killed and enough clues are left behind to reveal who the killer is. Once again, as in the first film, Miss Withers makes it clear she knows she is smarter than the detectives on the case and Mr Piper must acknowledge her for her brilliance in crime solving. Like "PPM", the rapport et between Oliver and Gleason is what makes the film sparkle. These are types of actors we don't see much of today. The closest to EMO I see are the late soap actress Lois Kibbee (who used some similar tricks to EMO's in her "Edge of Night" and "Caddyshack" performances) and Frances Sternhagen, who made public humiliation of her "Cheers" son Cliff downright hysterical and stole the Broadway version of "Steel Magnolias" away from its talented all-star cast. With James Gleason, the closest must be Jack Warden who took on Gleason's "Here Comes Mr. Jordan" role of Max Corkle in "Heaven Can Wait".This time, the murder involves some hanky-panky between a principal and his secretary, a winning lottery ticket, a secret marriage, a drunken janitor, and music notes left on a blackboard. There is a great moment between Oliver and one of her students whom she must keep after school for spreading gossip, and some chilling scenes in the basement of the school where the lights are suddenly darkened. But the payoff of the crime isn't as rewarding as that of "The Penguin Pool Murder", probably because the set-up for the killing and who all the suspects are isn't as satisfying. Only the use of music on the blackboard as a clue is somewhat ingenious. So, in all, "Murder on the Blackboard" is a decent films with "moments" rather than "atmosphere", making it watchable if totally unsatisfying.

Decidedly dated, early mystery starring Edna May Oliver as the irrepressible sleuth Hildergard Withers, Murder on the Blackboard is all fun. Oliver excels as the wise-cracking "Lady" teacher sleuth who finds that a young, pretty music teacher has been killed in her school - as both have stayed late working. Oliver enlists the help of detective James Gleason(an always reliable character actor) and the one-liners between the two begin to ensue as the track down the murderer. The writing in this film is witty, sharp, and rapid-fire and both Gleason and Oliver do more than justice to their respective roles. The list of suspects is limited(really only four people) but amongst them are Bruce Cabot and Tully Marshall. Because it was made in 1934 it is somewhat stagy and creaky, but the film is elevated by the two acting leads. Oliver on screen is pure magic as she is able to look oh so dour and be oh so sarcastic at every turn. A crackling whodunit in the old-fashioned sense of the word.