Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Blistering performances.

THE MAD MISS MANTON (1938) is a funny murder mystery. In a plot involving dead bodies lying around here and there and a murderer on the loose, the lighthearted screwball approach comes as a surprise. But it's a pleasant surprise, as the bright script makes this a rather enjoyable watch. (The convoluted "whodunit" aspect is a little weak.)Barbara Stanwyck is a New York socialite who's lost the trust of the police force (led hilariously by Sam Levene) after the evidence of the murder she reports disappears. Henry Fonda is a newspaper editor who smears Stanwyck for her murder "hoax" and party lifestyle. So Stanwyck assembles her ditzy gal pals and leads them on an investigation of the murder she knows was committed. Soon Fonda and the cops get involved, but Stanwyck prefers to solve the mystery on her own, despite the dangers.The murder mystery story doesn't impress as anything too special, but the script is often much funnier than expected. Sam Levene's broad performance as the police lieutenant has some great one-liners. Hattie McDaniel is a hoot as Stanwyck's maid ("I's a pacifist!") and even Henry Fonda has his moments ("She's probably still in kindergarten."). The debutante gang has some goofy characters ("That's communism!") and the story takes some pretty silly turns. Halfway through the movie, I found I was enjoying it more than I'd expected at the start.At only 80 minutes, this is a breezy mystery/comedy with some big names (Stanwyck and Fonda) and a bunch of fun characters. It's not really a top-drawer production, but the movie is enjoyable and worthy of a look.6.5/10

Society deb Melsa Manton (Barbara Stanwyck) discovers a body late one night in a abandoned house. She goes to get the police but when they return the body is missing. The police don't believe her so Manton and her bunch of ditzy friends try and solve the murder mystery themselves. Reporter Peter Ames (Henry Fonda) immediately falls in love with Melsa (after hating her on sight) and helps them.Pretty unknown movie...and it's easy to see why! Stanwyck, a wonderful actress, is woefully miscast as Manton. Fonda hated doing this movie and it shows. He's stone-faced throughout. The movie has plenty of potential but the comedy is either stupid or unfunny. Also I found Melsa's bunch of friends incredibly annoying--they all act like idiots and they're constantly screaming at everything. The romance between Manton and Ames comes out of nowhere and isn't believable for one second. Pauline Kael once wrote that this was written by people who had too much time on their hands. How true! Halfway through I just turned it off in disgust--I was bored and sick of having my intelligence insulted. If you want to see a good movie with Stanwyck and Fonda see "The Lady Eve". This one is hopeless.

Mad Miss Manton, The (1938) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Disappointing comedy about a rich woman (Barbara Stanwyck) who gets involved with a murder investigation and a reporter (Henry Fonda) covering the case. This was the first teaming of Stanwyck and Fonda but the end results aren't as good as I had hoped even though the film starts off pretty well. The comedy works for most of the time as the two stars really do good work together but it's Sam Levene who steals the show as the wisecracking Lieutenant. What really kills the film is the mystery, which never takes off and around the forty-minute mark it was really getting on my nerves. I wasn't interested in who did the killings and the multiple endings didn't help either.

Here's another from the great period of experimentation in the detective film. In this case, the detectives are 8 extremely wealthy 20 year old, very pretty women, always dressed to the nines. There isn't much effort to discriminate them as you normally might. One eats all the time, another is more infatuated with men than the others.And the leader, Barbara Stanwyck, is in nearly every scene so we can fall in love with her like our surrogate does: Henry Fonda (before anyone took him seriously as an actor) is a newspaper reporter, a standard device of the time to fold the audience in.The murders are more complicated in terms of who did them than usual , but the appeal of the thing was supposed to be clearly in the appeal of these eight woman. At first, they are motivated to solve the murder because our reporter called them useless members of society (and this with all their charity work!) Its well after the code, so the sex is rather understated. But it is there clearly enough in many lines and plot threads, We are supposed to see this not as a girl scout troop but a harem.Unfortunately, the thing is leaden. Nothing works, except when Hattie McDaniel is on the screen. She's fantastic. As Stanwyck's maid, she tells Fonda that she is instructed to throw water on him if he enters the apartment. He does and she does. Its the only thing in the movie where the timing works.Film students in the future when studying the beat a film has to have to work, will study this. Its easier to see and understand the lack of the thing.By this time, James Gleason's flustered loud cop was standard enough to copy though Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.