Waste of time

Highly Overrated But Still Good

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

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Director: STUART WALKER. Screenplay: John L. Balderston and Gladys Unger. Adaptation: Leopold Atlas, Bradley King. Based on the unfinished 1870 novel by Charles Dickens. Photography: George Robinson. Film editor: Edward Curtiss. Music composed by Edward Ward and Clifford Vaughan, orchestrated by Clifford Vaughan. Art director: Albert S. D'Agostino. Special effects: John P. Fulton. Technical advisor: Hilda Grenier. Assistant directors: Phil Karlson, Harry Mancke. Associate producer: Edmund Grainger.Copyright 5 February 1935 by Universal Pictures Corp. Presented by Carl Laemmle. New York opening at the Rialto: 20 March 1935. 9 reels. 85 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Rains is a cathedral choirmaster and opium addict who falls in love with Angel, the fiancee of his nephew, Manners. During a raging storm on Christmas Eve he strangles Manners and dumps his body in a quicklime pit in the crypt under the cathedral. He then tries to pin the murder on Montgomery, just back from Ceylon.COMMENT: A brilliant screenplay by John L. Balderston and Gladys Unger from a fine adaptation by Leopold Atlas and Bradley King, which not only preserves the dialogue and flavor of Charles Dickens' unfinished novel, but provides it with a most satisfactory and satisfying conclusion, more than makes up for some very incompetent acting and Stuart Walker's rather stagey direction. George Robinson's photography is less brilliant than usual, but there are some magnificent sets by art director Albert S. D'Agostino.

THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD (Universal, 1935), directed by Stuart Walker, is a complete motion picture taken from an incomplete final story written by Charles Dickens (1812-1870). Being Universal's second contribution to Dickens' novels captured on film, the first being the little known nor seen GREAT EXPEXCTATIONS (1934) starring Henry Hull and Phillips Holmes, also directed by Stuart Walker, EDWIN DROOD contains many performers in the cast usually associated with horror movies of recent years, which somewhat explains why this production is often part of fright night/shock theater on commercial television during the 1960s and 1970s, as well as distribution on video cassette in 1996 as part of Universal Horror Classics. Bearing a fine cast of Claude Rains ("The Invisible Man" 1933); David Manners ("Dracula" (1931), "The Mummy" (1932) and "The Black Cat" (1934)); Valerie Hobson (1935 "Bride of Frankenstein" and "Werewolf of London"); E.E. Clive and Forrester Harvey (both from "The Invisible Man" and others), one cannot help but assume this to be a horror film. Though there are no monsters nor mad scientists involved, there is the frightening presence of an insanely jealous choirmaster who happens to be an opium addict (Rains), but its basically a story of jealousy and mystery story with a surprise twist.Set in 19th century England, the story revolves around John Jasper (Claude Rains), a cathedral choirmaster of Cloisteram desperately in love with his music pupil, Rosa Bud (Heather Angel), a beautiful girl just turned 18, engaged to marry his 21-year-old nephew, Edwin "Ned" Drood (David Manners). Entering the scene are Neville Landless (Douglass Montgomery), and his sister, Helena (Valerie Hobson), arriving from Ceylon on a carriage to live under the wing of the Rev. Mr. Crisparkle (Francis L. Sullivan) and his wife (Louise Carter). Neville meets and immediately falls in love with Rosa, which leads to heated anger and near fights between the two men. Neville finds Edwin's vanity intolerable and not worthy of Rosa's hand in marriage. With a reputation of having a violent temper, as told to Crisparkle, Neville, in a drunken rage, takes a knife to Edwin, but holds back his anger and goes away. Realizing he is right in his assumption, Edwin breaks his engagement to Rosa, with Edwin and Neville later parting simply as friends. Jasper, unaware about the broken engagement, spots Ned kissing Rosa as they part company, assuming their embrace to be love and affection. With careful planning, Jasper murders Ned on Christmas Eve. The following day Jasper reports Ned missing to the authorities and accuses Neville of his nephew's murder, even though Ned's body has yet to be found. While all the evidence is now against Neville, especially after leaving town and adding to his "guilt," Jasper posts a $200 pound reward on Neville's return and arrest. Later a mysterious white haired/-bearded old man named Mr. Thackeray arrives, arousing suspicion to John Jasper as to why this mysterious old man is so much interested in the mystery of Edwin Drood.Others seen in the cast include Zeffie Tilbury (the opium den hag who predicts harm will come to anyone by the name of "Ned"); E.E. Clive (Mayor Thomas Sapsea); Walter Kingsford (Grengious, Rosa's guardian); Forrester Harvey (Durdles); Georgie Ernest (The Boy Deputy); J.M. Kerrigan (Chief Vergon Tope); and Ethel Griffies (Miss Twinkledon). Look quickly for Walter Brennan appearing briefly as the cockney town gossip. Claude Rains is perfectly cast in the lead as John Jasper, the one whom Rosa Bud (Heather Angel) describes as one "haunting her thoughts like a dreadful ghost." Much of the story rightfully belongs to Montgomery, as the accused, who goes to extreme measures to clear himself of a crime for which he is innocent. While Hobson has little to do as Angel's roommate and companion, the story is also helped by the angelic beauty of Heather Angel and Edward Ward's stock background music.It's a wonder had Charles Dickens lived to complete his novel of "The Mystery of Edwin Drood," would he have come up with a surprise twist ending as depicted in this motion picture or something completely different? It's also a wonder how the 1914 silent screen adaptation to the same story was handled? Notably the novel had been completed and published in 1980 by another author over century after Dickens' death, yet this climax itself is enough to indicate its satisfying conclusion. Regardless the familiar background settings used in other horror films produced at the same time, this production does capture the essence of Gothic 19th century England and anything else associated with Dickens' work.Nearly forgotten through the absence from television revivals in later years, THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD did surface again on Turner Classic Movies (TCM premiere: December 5, 2011), and later on DVD as part of Universal's Vault Collection, the movie itself is a worthy rediscovery to an outlook of now forgotten films outside Frankenstein, Dracula or The Werewolf productions produced by Carl Laemmle's for which Universal is known for today. (***)

Claude Rains, a consistently great actor, is reason enough to see any film. And Mystery of Edwin Drood is very good, it does a noble job adapting an unfinished book and works very well on its own. It does have pacing issues and the ending is far too melodramatic. The stylised Gothic sets though are very striking and the film is filmed most handsomely and further advantaged by generous direction from Stuart Walker. The atmosphere evoked really does give off a sense of unease. The dialogue is easy to follow and is written, while the story is tense and suspenseful. The film is short for a Dickens adaptation, but the mystery is always involving and respects the book, well with what they had to work with, rather than disembowelling it. The characters are believable, especially the tortured and creepy John Jasper. Claude Rains may have given better performances, but he is still exceptional, and from Rains you wouldn't expect any less. In fact all the cast acquits themselves well, particularly Douglass Montgommery and Heather Angel. David Manners doesn't have as much to do but is also good. To conclude, very good. 8/10 Bethany Cox

Mystery of Edwin Drood (1935)** 1/2 (out of 4) This Universal film gets called by some one of their horror pictures but I think that's a tad bit off from the truth as it's certainly more melodrama. In the film Claude Rains plays an opium addicted choirmaster who falls in love with a woman (Heather Angel) who just happens to belong to his nephew (David Manners). The woman is loved by a third man (Douglass Montgomery) willing to kill whoever gets in his way and soon the nephew goes missing. MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD is based on an unfinished novel by Charles Dickens. It was unfinished because the legend actually died while writing it so the ending here is something the screenwriter came up with on his own. The film isn't a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination but in the end I think it's way too slow and boring in parts and not to mention that it takes forever to really get going. The biggest problem is the pacing from director Stuart Walker who never really seems to get control of the film. It contains way too many slow spots and I think aspects of the drug usage was trimmed to avoid any trouble with the production code. Even the ending features a shot that seems to have been cut back but I won't ruin it. What keeps the film watchable is the performance by Rains who has no troubled playing the obsessed man and I think he's quite believable in the part. Manners, Angel and Montgomery are also good in their parts and we also get to see Valerie Hobson who the same year was in BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN. Speaking of that James Whale classic, this film shares many of the same sets, which is fun for fans to spot.