The greatest movie ever made..!

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Only forty-five minutes long, The Hat Box Mystery is a fast-paced and feisty comedy/suspense combo. Directed by Lambert Hillyer, the 1947 release has a screenplay by Carl K. Hittleman and Don Martin that was based on a story by Hittleman and Maury Nunes. The film opens in the office of private detective Russ Ashton (Tom Neal) sitting behind a desk and shuffling through papers. "Hello, folks," he says earnestly, looking directly at the camera and audience as he breaks the fourth wall. "Do you know what these are? Bills – unpaid bills." Russ glumly complains about the inability of his business to make a profit and then wryly suggests that he could "blame my secretary." That secretary, lovely, pert blonde Susan Hart (Pamela Blake), immediately joins Russ who informs the audience that he and Susan plan to marry someday. The scene is suddenly shaken by loud and disconcerting banging noises. Russ ironically observes, "That, no doubt, is my silent assistant, Harvard." Harvard (Allen Jenkins) takes a place beside Susan. "Everybody calls me Harvard – maybe because I never went to Yale," Harvard joshes, establishing himself as the comic foil to the sober Russ who then informs the audience that Harvard's sweetheart is Veronica Hoopler (Virginia Sale) who runs the nearby hamburger stand. The dark-haired, homely Veronica is soon clinging to Harvard. Harvard reminds Russ to "tell them our names." Then Russ tells the audience the names of the assembled actors and actresses. "Here's the rest of the cast," he continues and the screen switches to credits across a beautifully be-ribboned hatbox.The opening establishes The Hat Box Mystery as a movie with a difference, a movie conscious of its own artifice and confident enough to ease into a film story line after proclaiming that artifice.The mood switches dramatically as we see an urban area after dark, and then a woman walking in the darkness of that city street, and then a man following her. Ominous background music heightens the tension. "Just a minute, Mrs. Moreland," the man says. The well-dressed lady (Olga Andre) sharply protests, "I'm not giving you another penny. I'm finished with blackmail." Cut to daylight, the Ashton Agency office, and the trio of Russ, Susan, and Harvard. There is a knock at the door. Russ hopefully speculates, "It might be a client." Wanting to impress someone presumed to be a potential client, Russ picks up the telephone receiver and, as a man walks into the room, Russ asserts in a stout voice, "I can't be running down to Washington to solve your tough cases." When Russ hangs up the phone, he asks the newcomer, "What can I do for you?""You can't do anything for me," the man replies with a thin, knowing smile. "I just wanted to tell you that now that your bill is paid, my partner is hooking up your phone. It should be on any minute." The described scenes illustrate how this tight little film veers between chilling urban-jungle suspense and lively comic relief.When Russ is – genuinely -- called away to Washington on a job, Susan takes over the office. Her first client (Leonard Penn) sports a singularly dramatic appearance. He is a bespectacled man with a goatee who walks in carrying a cane -- and a hatbox. He tells Susan that he suspects his wife, Marie Moreland, of seeing another man. He wants Susan to take a photograph of Mrs. Moreland as she comes out of the building in which this other man resides so he can have evidence to show a divorce court. Mr. Moreland shows Susan a picture of Marie. He tells Susan that Marie knows he is aware of her extracurricular activities and would avoid a camera if she noticed it. Thus, he has rigged up a camera inside the hatbox. Susan only has to pull a little lever outside the box and she can take the telltale photograph.Happy to be on her first case, Susan assures Mr. Moreland that she is eager to perform the task that might get him the divorce he wants. On the sidewalk before a swanky apartment complex, Susan exchanges pleasantries with a cop (Tom Kennedy) on the beat. Marie Moreland walks out of the building. Susan points the hatbox at Marie Moreland and pulls the lever. A shot rings out and Marie collapses. The shocked Susan also sinks collapses.Newspapers flash across the screen with headlines about the "Hat Box Mystery," how a detective's assistant is being held in the bizarre shooting, and how she blames a shadowy "Mr. Moreland."Police investigators inform Susan that Marie has not had a husband for years. Susan is baffled. She is also deeply distressed to have shot another human being, however accidentally, flummoxed that someone apparently conned her into becoming an instrument of death, and terrified to face a murder charge. When Russ returns, he is determined to learn the truth of the matter and to clear Susan. Much of the rest of this fast-paced film shows Russ figuring out the intricacies of a diabolically clever murder and frame-up. What makes this brief film special is the way it successfully combines disparate genres and keeps the viewer interested. Between following a murder plot full of nefarious gangsters and tantalizing twists, we watch the comical – yet strangely touching – romantic machinations of bumbling Harvard and plain-faced but winsomely sweet Veronica. We remain interested through the film's genuinely surprising end.As both a mystery and a comedy, The Hat Box Mystery is a killer of a cutie of a film.

Plot summary from IMDb: "Susan Hart, assistant to private detective Russ Ashton, is given a camera concealed in a hat box and assigned to take a picture of a woman. A gun is accidentally hidden in the box and the woman is killed. Susan is charged with murder, but Russ and his less-than-useful associate, Harvard, get on the case and prove that the fatal shot was fired by the killer from across the street." While I agree with most of this, the gun wasn't "accidentally hidden". It was placed there on purpose so Susan would be charged with murder.The Hat Box Mystery is a fun, little, noir-ish mystery. When I say little, it runs only 44 minutes and the first three or four minutes are taken up introducing, not just the characters, but the actual actors. This is strictly a low-budget B-quickie, but The Hat Box Mystery overcomes some of its budget limitations (static camera, stage-bound sets, uninspired lighting), and delivers a reasonably entertaining story. Tom Neal and Pamela Blake give very nice performances. Allen Jenkins and Virginia Sale provide the comic relief that, unfortunately, misses more than it hits. The supporting cast is adequate. The movie flows fairly nicely, only interrupted by one of Jenkins' gags. Overall, not a bad way to spend 3/4 of an hour.

When I saw that Robert Lippert was listed on the credits as 'presenter' a lot of questions about The Hat Box Mystery were answered. Shortly Lippert would found his own studio that did poverty row quickies, some were better than others. Though it was a product of the short lived Screen Guild Productions, this film has all the earmarks of a typical Lippert.Tom Neal takes over a ramshackle detective agency that's up to the privates in debt. Girl Friday Pamela Blake works for Neal as does Allen Jenkins whom he keeps around for laughs. And also due to the fact that Jenkins's girl friend apparently feeds them from her hamburger stand when they can't afford a meal.A rather elegant man in spats and a van dyke beard says he'd like some incriminating evidence on his wife, a photograph coming out of a building where presumably a paramour resides. Blake volunteers and she has a camera concealed in a hat box. Only there's a gun in there and when Blake shoots a picture, the victim Olga Andre falls over shot.I won't go into any more of this very short B film, but simple forensics which Neal does and the police should as a matter of routine would have cleared Blake. Just where were the CSI technicians when this prominent society woman was shot?Allen Jenkins is simply Allen Jenkins, the none too bright sidekick on either side of the law in so many Warner Brothers films. But his presence in the movie was a Bob Lippert trademark. In about a third to half of the films at Lippert Studios they had a resident comedian who functions like Jenkins here. No doubt Lippert got the idea to put Sid Melton under contract and he made a few dozen Lippert films always the comic relief on either side of the law. And in some dreadful films just like The Hat Box Mystery.

With her boss away on much needed business Susan Blake agrees to take a photo of a cheating wife for an new client using a camera in a hat box. Unfortunately for Susan the camera is really a gun and she is being used to kill woman "in the photo".Short and breezy this movie would be completely forgettable were it not for the means of the murder. Its not that its bad as such, its more that the plotting is so tight that it really has nowhere to go. I'd really like to explain a couple of the non twists but that would reveal pretty much everything there is about the meager story. While it makes for an enjoyable 43 minutes, you do wish that there was more meat on this hamburger of a movie. The cast which includes Tom Neal and Allen Jenkins is game and sells it for more than its worth. The script, though unremarkable plotted, does have some funny lines such as when the first "client" in a long spell finally walks through the door.Recommended as part of a night of multiple features and not a stand alone movie.