Mystery movie: Alibi For Murder (1936)

Alibi For Murder, 1936

Alibi For Murder (1936), produced by Columbia Pictures, directed by D. Ross Lederman, starring William Gargan and Marguerite Churchill, with Gene Morgan, Wade Boteler, Dwight Frye, and John Gallaudet. Written by Tom Van Dycke. Approximately 61 minutes (depending upon the print you see). Originally released September 23, 1936. Note that its working title was apparently Two Minute Alibi but I don’t believe the movie was ever released under that title.

Briefly: This film is not all that interesting, but it does have one feature that may be of interest to my readers; it attempts to bring an “impossible crime” to the screen.

Please be warned that this essay concerns a work of detective fiction; part of its potential enjoyment is based on surprising the reader. If you read any further, you will learn something about the titular film and perhaps some others. I do not reveal whodunit, but I do discuss elements of plot and construction, including revealing the secret of the “impossible crime” shown here. If you haven’t already seen this film, it will have lost its power to surprise you to greater or lesser extent, and that would be a shame. So please go and watch this movie before you spoil your own enjoyment. If you proceed past this point, you’re on your own. 

What’s this movie about?

Alibi For Murder, 1936 (title card)

William Gargan plays an intrepid radio reporter, Perry Travis, who is trying to get an interview with a reclusive Nobel Prize-winning scientist, John J. Foster, as he disembarks from the Hindenburg in New Jersey. Perry’s comedy-relief assistant Brainy Barker (Gene Morgan) assists him in his quest. The scientist’s beautiful secretary Lois (Marguerite Churchill) misdirects him as to Foster’s whereabouts, but Perry reads a luggage label and learns that the scientist has gone to his Long Island home. He speeds out there and bluffs his way into the front hall, but as he’s trying to get past the household to interview the scientist, a shot rings out and Dr. Foster is found dead in his library. The library door is under observation and yet no one is in the room.

Scene in the “murder room” from Alibi for Murder, 1936

Perry reveals the murder as a scoop on the air, and he reveals (for no very good reasons) that he thinks it’s murder. There are plenty of suspects, including Foster’s wife Norma (Drue Leyton), his business manager E. J. Easton (Romaine Callender), and Mr. McBride (Dwight Frye). McBride is Foster’s assistant but his function is to be overwrought, to cast aspersions on the rest of the household and Foster’s business associates, and to reveal that the victim was not the selfless scientist everyone thought. He’s also seen very, very briefly in the victim’s office just before the household breaks in (and gets to say the classic line, “But he was dead when I got here!”).

There’s also a large subplot concerning Foster’s discoveries as they apply to munitions. All sorts of people are after Foster’s latest discovery, which has some important but unstated use in war-related chemicals. Sir Conrad Stava (Egon Brecher) (whom Lois has seen going through Foster’s desk) comes to visit Perry and Brainy and then some shots are fired through Perry’s office window. Perry finds a listening device in his office; everyone’s trying to find out how close he is to learning Foster’s final secret.

Skippy (aka Asta) the wire-haired terrier

When Perry heads out to Long Island, he’s just in time to rescue the butler, Lois, and Easton from a garage that is rapidly filling with deadly gas. (He’s assisted in this rescue by an uncredited dog I believe to be Skippy, the wire-haired terrier who played Asta in the first four Thin Man movies.) Later that night the detectives figure out that because of a ventilator in the garage roof, the gas victims were never in any real danger … A couple of thugs (Norman Willis and Edward McWade) promise violence to Perry and Brainy, but Perry manages to get them taken into custody by enlisting a traffic cop.

Perry convinces Lois to gather all the suspects in the victim’s library and demonstrates how the victim was killed. (Foster was killed with a silenced gun and the murderer planted a bullet cartridge in the fireplace that exploded when the room was empty.) Then Perry reveals that the killer was about to run away with Foster’s wife … the murderer then tries to escape, shoots it out with police, and dies in the process.  Perry broadcasts his latest scoop and, in the traditional romantic ending, announces that he plans to marry Lois.

Is this a good mystery movie?

You know, it’s not too bad. There are a couple of sophisticated mystery elements in this movie that are a bit above the regular run of B-movies … principally the idea that some of the suspects may have looked like they were in danger in the gas-filled garage but the detectives realize they never really were. And, of course, that the murderer plants a cartridge in the fireplace that goes off after he’s left the room. In B-movie terms, that’s quite an intellectual stretch for this film; it’s carried through properly by having Perry be seen to pick up a cartridge case by the fireplace, early in the film, and justify its presence in the blow-off finale.

Of course, there are the usual plot holes — it’s hard to tell a fast-moving story like this in a mere 61 minutes without them. But there are actually some moments of genuine deduction; for instance, around the use of a silencer. And the detective tests a hypothesis by investigating the gas-filled garage.

Who’s in this movie and in what other mysteries have I seen them?

Links to the names of individuals are to their IMDb listings.

It is somewhat distressing that most people who see this review and the movie will really only recognize Skippy the wire-haired terrier, who appears for about sixty seconds over two shots.

Dwight Frye

A possible second-most-recognizable would be character actor Dwight Frye, who plays a small but pivotal role here — he played Renfield in Dracula (1931) and Wilmer, the gunsel, in The Maltese Falcon (1931). In terms of other period mysteries, he’s also in The Circus Queen Murder and Who Killed Gail Preston?, both of which are worth your time, and played small, often uncredited roles in a host of other A and B movies.

William Gargan (not from this film)

William Gargan should be more familiar to mystery movie fans than he actually is — he did a good job playing Ellery Queen in three B movies in 1942, and the title character in television’s 1949-1951 TV series Martin Kane, Private Eye and the sequel 1957 series, The New Adventures of Martin Kane. He’s also in 1946’s Murder in the Music Hall, 1945’s Midnight Manhunt and 1942’s Who Done It? All these films would qualify for inclusion in my analysis of mystery movies and you may see me talk about them here some day.

Marguerite Churchill

Marguerite Churchill‘s film career seemed to sputter to a halt in 1936, three years after her marriage to actor George O’Brien — I’m not sure why. She has striking features and a great figure, and given the material, she’s quite a competent actor. Before this film, she has some excellent mystery movie credentials — she plays Sally Keating in 1936’s Murder by an Aristocrat and appears in Charlie Chan Carries On (1931). I’ve talked about the “Sally Keating” character in my discussion of another early mystery movie from 1935, While The Patient Slept. Churchill is also in 1936’s The Walking Dead (a Karloff horror movie) and Dracula’s Daughter the same year, where she is seduced into vampirism by Gloria Holden.

Gene Morgan (not from this film)

Gene Morgan has a lot of uncredited roles as second banana, or worse, dating back to the silent days.  He too was in Who Killed Gail Preston? (1938), Murder in Greenwich Village (1937), and 1936’s Meet Nero Wolfe (as officer O’Grady). He’s also the lead in a piece de merde from 1932 called Tangled Destinies which is a mystery I hope to look at for you some day.

Wade Boteler

Wade Boteler doesn’t have much of a role here but you can see him in an Old Dark House classic I discussed some time ago, The Hidden Hand (1942), and lots of other uncredited appearances in mysteries like 1942’s Blue, White and Perfect and 1941’s Footsteps in the Dark. He’s definitely from the B-movie end of the spectrum but he did play Inspector Queen in 1936’s The Mandarin Mystery and Lt. Macy in Charlie Chan At The Circus (1936), and a sheriff in 1936’s The President’s Mystery. Once you get a good look at his face, you’ll recognize him in a lot of old movies, usually as a gruff cop.

Shadows on the Stairs (1941)

The director, D. Ross Lederman, was primarily a B-movie director of westerns and action movies, but he has a good few mysteries in his resume; 1936’s The Final Hour and Panic on the Air, for instance, and 1934’s The Crime of Helen Stanley. My fellow members of the excellent Facebook group Golden Age Detection will remember a reference within the last few days to my fellow GAD blogger Jamie Bernthal-Hooker’s analysis of Murder on the Second Floor by Frank Vosper; Lederman directed one of the two filmed versions of this novel, 1941’s Shadows on the Stairs.

Not With My Neck, Tom Van Dycke & Ben Kerner (Handi-Books #80, 1948)

And finally, the screenwriter, Tom Van Dycke, appears to have had not very much of a career in mystery novels or films.  His novel, Murder at Monte Carlo, was made into a movie of the same name from 1935, starring Errol Flynn — no, not Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo, that was quite a different story and 1937 to boot. ABE doesn’t offer a copy of this book but there are a number of copies of another mystery by him — Not With My Neck (1947), which was a fairly lurid paperback from Handi-Book in 1948.

How can I see this movie myself?

I’ve been told this movie is in the public domain — I’m never sure about these things, so confirm for yourself. I bought a copy over the internet years ago for $5. These days if you want to get a copy you can do so via Amazon. Experienced film buyers will know that the usual range of crazy prices (here from about $20 to over $100) is meant for the unwary and you can probably find a copy at a much lower price if you look around.

I don’t remember ever seeing this film on television; I would start by looking at TCM and similar old-movie services to see if they offer it.

 

While The Patient Slept (1935)

While The Patient Slept

Author: Based on a novel of the same name published by Mignon G. Eberhart in 1930. The novel won $5000 and the Scotland Yard prize.  Screenplay by Robert N. Lee and Eugene Solow; additional dialogue by Brown Holmes. Eberhart’s novel was acknowledged.

Lee wrote some interesting mystery films, including the screenplay for the well-received Kennel Murder Case, and was nominated for an Oscar in 1931 for adapting the screenplay of Little Caesar.  Solow wrote the screenplay for The League of Frightened Men, a Nero Wolfe screenplay, and Of Mice and Men. And Brown Holmes did the screenplay for two Perry Mason films, TCOT Lucky Legs and TCOT Curious Bride, among many, many others, including The Maltese Falcon.

Other Data:  March 9, 1935, according to IMDB.  Directed by Ray Enright, who started his career working for Matt Sennett and directed 76 titles that no one has ever heard of, including a lot of Westerns.

Cast: Aline MacMahon as Nurse Sarah Keate, an inquisitive nurse who is at the right place at the right time. Guy Kibbee as Detective Lance O’Leary.  Supporting cast includes a bunch of familiar hard-working faces; perhaps the most recognizable is Lyle Talbot.

About this film:

This is the first in a series of  mystery films that is very hard to define, but I’ll do my best. They are six films that are connected because there is a character in each of them who is a nurse named something like Sarah Keate (Sally Keating, Sara Keating, etc.). For the most part, they are somehow based on original murder mysteries by a writer named Mignon G. Eberhart.

While The Patient Slept, 1935, Sarah Keate is played by Aline MacMahon. Lance O’Leary is played by Guy Kibbee.
The Murder of Dr. Harrigan, 1935, Sally Keating is played by Kay Linaker.
Murder of an Aristocrat, 1935, Sally Keating is played by Marguerite Churchill.
The Great Hospital Mystery, 1937, Sarah Keats is played by Jane Darwell.
The Patient in Room 18, 1938, Sara Keate is played by Ann Sheridan. Lance O’Leary is played by Patric Knowles.
Mystery House, 1938, Sarah Keate is played by Ann Sheridan. Lance O’Leary is played by Dick Purcell.

As you can see, this is not a series that has a strong backstory. Aline MacMahon and Jane Darwell were talented, but unbeautiful, hence character actors; the others were young pretty leading ladies.  Sometimes there’s a policeman-boyfriend named Lance O’Leary, who is either middle-aged and comedic or young and handsome. The basic situation is that someone is sick, or has been shot, or is in a wheelchair, and needs a private nurse.  Nurse Keate arrives on the spot, someone is murdered, and a policeman investigates.  Because the nurse is an “impartial” onlooker, she can cooperate with the police to help solve the crime.

Aline MacMahon was instantly familiar to me as having played Ginger Rogers’s best friend in Gold Diggers of 1933. in which she also digs a little gold in the person of — Guy Kibbee. This may be an attempt to pair the two of them as a “kooky detective team” or merely to cash in on any popularity engendered by their previous pairing.  Physically in this film she is tall, large-boned (no, I am not making a euphemism for fat. She appears to be a tall woman with wide hips and long arms and legs) and has a stocky figure. Since Guy Kibbee is a chunky middle-aged unhandsome man, it is permissible by the filmic conventions of 1935 for them to be romantically involved in a comedic way, and they so do here. MacMahon won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1944 for Dragon Seed, wherein Katharine Hepburn chewed the scenery in yellowface. (Jane Darwell won the same award in 1940 for playing Ma Joad in The Grapes of Wrath, and now I bet a picture of her face has instantly come to your mind.) I don’t know offhand of any other film in which MacMahon was billed first and this may actually be her only starring vehicle; if you know differently, I’d like to know. I have no taste for going through every one of her long list of IMDB entries to see precisely where she’s billed.

Guy Kibbee  has some detective chops in his own right. He played Jim Hanvey, Detective in 1937 but any projected series went nowhere. (C. Aubrey Smith played this detective created by Octavus Roy Cohen in 1933’s Curtain at Eight, which may have added some brand confusion.) One source described him accurately as the quintessential small-town big shot, and I think that’s deadly accurate. He’s a chunky man full of bombast, ideal to play a policeman who is “in charge”.

The story is actually quite interesting. An elderly man, Mr. Federie, wealthy and with a household full of mostly disagreeable relatives and a few employees, is quite ill and on his deathbed; he has a stroke and requires the services of Nurse Keate. He has called them all together to discuss something, but has been felled before he can speak. Unexpectedly, one of the disagreeable Federies is murdered and the others in the house immediately begin ways to incriminate each other, depending on their history and their motives. Meanwhile, a small green statute of an elephant appears and disappears and is meant as a MacGuffin. After much hubbub and throwing of suspicion, the elephant is revealed to conceal a document which brings home the murder to the criminal, Guy Kibbee apparently asks Nurse Keate to marry him, the invalid wakens and says, “Did something happen?”, and the world is set to rights.

The action of the film takes place entirely within the confines of the patriarch’s mansion and there is a strong element of ODH (Old Dark House) grafted into this straightforward plot, with interesting and appealing results. There is also a strong element of gentle humour in the course of this film that is quite appealing.

The ODH elements are familiar to anyone who grew up with the parodies of the genre so beautifully done by a couple of Bugs Bunny cartoons. You’ll know it immediately; a dimly-lit mansion filled with secret panels out of which emit clutching hands, draperied entrances which flutter to show the exit of a mysterious cloaked figure, and the painting on the wall whose eyes literally follow you around the room, because someone is in a secret passage behind the painting watching you. Well, quite a few elements of the classic ODH are here. There are draperied entrances, and the invalid has a dark-paneled two-storey bedroom (I know, right? Like we should all have a minstrel gallery above the four-poster) complete with secret passage off the closet leading to a secret windowless room. Plus, there actually is a clutching hand behind the draperied entrance. All that’s missing is the eyeless portrait but, really, they had to have room for the murder plot.

As far as the humour goes, I give it full marks. This is 1935, and a comedy film frequently consisted of a bunch of odd characters jammed together into a flimsy plot, and good actors making us laugh at their characteristic antics.  The comedy didn’t arise organically from the characters combining with the plot, as we have come to expect these days now that films are much, much more expensive to make. Here, indeed, the writing is a lot better than it has to be.  Mignon Eberhart provides the raw materials — a nurse, a detective, and a house full of relatives who hate each other and want to inherit. But the screenwriters have transformed this material in a way that would not have disgraced films of the period that had a LOT more money spent on them.

Indeed, the screenwriters take the defects of the basic murder plot and turn them into virtues. Ngaio Marsh is well known for a huge sag in the middle of many of her books — after the mise en scene, everything grinds to a halt while the police bring in one suspect at a time and interrogate them, partly to complicate the plot and partly to distinguish them in the eyes of the reader. Well, here, since everyone has been called to the mansion to visit old Mr. Federie, immediately after Nurse Keate starts to work, everyone in the house troops in, one after the other, and asks to be informed first when Mr. Federie is again able to speak. By the time the last one arrives, Nurse Keate cuts her off, tells her she’ll contact her when Mr. Federie comes to, and ejects her unceremoniously. This takes a necessity and makes it into a virtue, and elegantly so. The script is full of such nice little touches.

At one point I actually chuckled aloud, which for the average viewer is probably the equivalent of a belly laugh.  (I’m frequently too focused on the structure of what I’m seeing to react to the emotions of it.) I’ve seen this film a couple of times before, and this clever little joke still caught me by surprise. Kibbee and his assistant are pounding on the bedroom door of a disagreeable and slightly dotty woman trying to persuade her to come forward and testify.  She flatly refuses. Kibbee remarks that he only has trouble getting men to talk; women he cannot persuade to stop.  He then calls through the door, “This is your last chance to tell us what you know!” A moment later — “I’ll be right out!”

As noted above, there is a small sub-theme of Kibbee and MacMahon becoming romantically involved. I don’t think anyone takes it seriously; I don’t think it was meant to be taken seriously. It was merely a sop to the conventions, in the sense that in 1935 if an unmarried man and an unmarried woman were to work closely together on a murder case, they would either be romantically involved leading to marriage, or it would be a social mis-step.

I liked this film quite a bit and recall it, and its fellows, fondly. This is an example of the kind of work turned out by the studios at the B level; this is the work of a group of professionals turning out disposable entertainment in large quantities on a tight schedule, much like what would happen in the early days of television. And yet it is much better than it needed to be.  It has intelligence and charm and humour. It has a great deal of minor-league acting talent and it’s even very competently directed. The mystery plot will not occupy your mind for long, since it primarily depends upon the clue in the green elephant — once you find that, it’s all over. In the meantime, in the classic pattern, everyone looks guilty as hell for about five minutes each, and everything is rolled up in a tidy 67 minutes.

Notes For the Collector:

Copies of the film seem readily available; it’s been released by Warner Classics.  Turner Classic Movies showed it recently and re-runs it perhaps once a year.  Since I’m sure that almost no one recognizes that Sara Keate, Sarah Keate, and Sally Keating are meant to be the same person, it is highly unlikely that a uniform edition will be coming out any time soon, but you never know. In the meantime, I recommend the fun of tracking down the whole set; a couple will occupy you to obtain them.