Waste of time

Good movie but grossly overrated

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.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The star is shot during filming, and Detective Sheehan (John Wray) must solve the murder. The stange and mysterious Bela Lugosi is Steiner, studio manager. It looks like "Marcia" (Adrienne Ames) was involved, but was she, or wasn't she? David Manner is "Drew". Some fun lines... picture, sound, and editing are a little shaggy, but watchable. and quite the provocative movie poster, in the top left corner, as of today. CLEARLY this was pre-film-code. Pretty bland role for Lugosi... he was usually a big, scary character, but only has a small side player role here. Very first film for director Ed Marin. did lots of murder stuff after this one.

"The Death Kiss," a humor-laced murder mystery set in a Hollywood movie studio, unspools at a snappy pace offering one delight after another: a striking opening, followed by the introduction of a succession of colorful characters played by Everett Van Sloan, Bela Lugosi, Harold Minjir, Alexander Carr, the photogenic Adrienne Ames and David Manners as a studio writer who tries to figure out whodunit. There is a loose, breezy feel, with the camera tracking and panning freely not only around the movie studio but into its nooks and crannies as the dialogue zings with amusing exchanges and wisecracks. There are even hand-tinted flames, gunshots and flashlight beams during various action sequences.

Early Talkie-Fest that has a Number of Things that make this just a Tad Above the Normal Run of the Mill, Low-Budget Movies that were Churned Out in Hollywood at the Time Faster than Food in Styrofoam. There's Bela Lugosi in a Non-Horror, Non-Leading Role. A Peek Behind the Scenes at the Primitive Sound Stages of 1932. The Reunion of three Major Stars from Dracula (1931). Some Very Effective and Neat use of Limited Color Tinting. Pre-Code Characters that in a Few Short Years would become Extinct, Homosexuals and Ethnic Types. The Plotting of a Movie within a Movie.The Story Unfolds with more Characters and Twists and Red Herrings than Necessary, but Overall it is Worth a Watch for the Aforementioned and while Never Dull in the End it Boils Over from too much in the Pot. Affecting, Interesting, and a Curioso.

First, we're tricked into thinking this is a vampire movie by its title, then we're tricked into thinking this is a Bela Lugosi movie................. with no big payoff. The fake-out ending: an actor is killed on-camera, while filming a scene in which his character is shot and killed. When footage is played back, in an attempt to spot the killer, the footage burned by an unknown person before the key moment. Since the dead man was very much disliked on the set, there is no shortage of suspects in the killing. A motor-mouthed, wisecracking mystery writer is determined to find the killer, and clear the dead man's ex-wife, his own current love interest. Despite its misleading title, this was a potentially good 1930s murder mystery, but drenched in one-liners and wisecracks. About one quarter of them are amusing, the rest are just tiresome and distracting. Overall the film ends up being confusing and anticlimactic, with dramatic changes in the tone throughout, and it wastes Bela Lugosi in a nothing background role, while giving David Manners seemingly endless opportunities to hog the spotlight.A few effective scenes scattered throughout, and it is interesting as a pseudo-"behind the scenes" look at the making of a movie in 1930s Hollywood, also to catch a glimpse of the (now long out-dated) equipment and filming routines makes this worth watching, but it's a disappointment, because despite being top-billed, Bela Lugosi has perhaps 15 minutes of screen time, and few lines.The version that I watched was in black-and-white, but allegedly there is another version of this, with several colour-tinted scenes, which I would still like to watch.