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.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

It runs a little too long (even at just 74 minutes), Bruce Cabot is a tad colorless in the lead and Margaret Lindsay is not really allowed to be her usual perky self (logically, since members of her family keep dropping like flies), but "Sinner Take All" is still a fairly good murder mystery, with a strong finish (the film tricks the viewer by having the hero be wrong about the culprit, and the motive is well-hidden in plain view in one or two seemingly throwaway scenes), a memorably violent death scene, and some interesting supporting characters, like a cop who is smarter than he looks. By the way, has there ever been a 1930s mystery without a nightclub owned by an ex-gangster who wants to go straight? **1/2 out of 4.

The strangely titled Sinner Take All is a superior second feature that benefits from a good screenplay, excellent MGM production values, and a fine cast. Director Errol Taggart (who spent the early years of his career editing some of Tod Browning's best Lon Chaney silents, and also got second unit credit on 1932's Freaks) displays some talent with the camera, and there is excellent use of lighting, perspective, and montage thanks to cinematographer Leonard Smith. Also of note are the performances of Bruce Cabot as the hotshot reporter-lawyer on the trail of a serial killer and, of course, George Zucco, whose performance here surely anticipates the advent of C. Montgomery Burns ("EX-cellent!").

Good murder story in this little programmer helped immensely by breezy performances by Bruce Cabot (always underrated) and Margaret Lindsay. Cabot plays a former reported who has become a lawyer. But the man he works for (Charley Grapewin) also owns the newspapers so when his family starts receiving threatening notes, he's put back on the job as a reporter. As the family members starts getting knocked off in gruesome "accidents," Cabot digs deeper into the lives of the rich. It's one of those murder mysteries where EVERYONE is a suspect. Nicely done film.Cabot had his biggest success in King Kong but was never able to follow up with anything important. Same with Lindsay; she was around for years as leads in B films and second leads (Jezebel) in big films. Both are attractive and fun to watch.Sinner Takes All also has a few familiar faces including Joseph Calleia as the nightclub owner, Stanley Ridges as the editor, Vivienne Osborne as his wife, Dorothy Kilgallen as a news hen; Harry Holman as a cop, George Zucco as Bascombe, and Jonathan Hale as the doctor.And yes that's the same Dorothy Kilgallen who was a panelist on What's My Line and who died mysteriously after announcing she had discovered something about the Kennedy assassination.

"Sinner Take all" was based on the mystery novel, "Murder for a Wanton" by Whitman Chambers. The book title makes a little more sense to me than does the movie title. When I first read the title on TCM's schedule I thought it was some sort of morality play. It turns out to be a fairly decent murder story involving the members of a wealthy family being killed one by one. Bruce Cabot of "King Kong" fame is the reporter/would-be lawyer investigating the strange happenings which tend to point a guilty finger at his would-be girlfriend played by Margaret Lindsay. Why Lindsay never reached star status in Hollywood is a good question since she does such an outstanding acting job in this film. The marvelous Charley Grapewin plays the patriarch, a different type role for him. Joseph Calleia plays a role that suits him well as the owner of a casino with apparent mob connections. George Zucco makes the most of his small part and the old cowboy Raymond Hatton has a brief scene as a hotel clerk. Also watch for Dorothy Kilgallen who appears briefly as a reporter. An actress named Eadie Adams appears as Shirley Allen. She so impressed me that I looked up information on her because I had not seen her in a movie before. She had a very short career. Does anyone know the reason? The character who impressed me the least was Capt. Bill Royce played by Edward Pawley. I was pleased that the writers did not make him a stupid, bumbling policeman but rather a thorough, intelligent investigator. Still the performance seemed stilted and the actor appeared bored in his role.The film was directed by a studio man, Errol Taggart, who at times seemed to copy such movie geniuses as Sergei Eisenstein. By cutting techniques partly developed by Eisenstein he, for example, cuts from a flaming car to a flaming match. Eisenstein always had a symbolic reason for such cutting. There is nothing symbolic that I could see in the cutting used by Taggart. Later, Alfred Hitchcock would wisely use such cutting for metaphoric effect, for example, a train going into a tunnel for sexual consummation.With better scripting--the intended humor often falls flat--and better directing, this could have been one of the best murder mysteries of the period. I especially liked the way the ending was handled. You will be surprised how the guilty person reacts to being caught. If you enjoy old mystery movies, you should like this one.