A Strange Adventure

Wayne Murder Case aka A Strange Adventure (1932)

However, his secretary has anticipated the reading and already switched the soon-to-be inherited diamond with a paste substitute. Silas (William V. Mong) is not that dumb and has sent for the police.

He still goes forward with the reading of his will, surrounded by relatives, associates, and the police. They all give him dirty looks and if looks could kill... Just before he signs the will Silas keels over. Everyone closes in with genuine concern that he is still alive.

Detective-Sergeant Mitchell (Regis Toomey) is assigned the case. And who should stick her nose in but a newspaper gal 'Nosey' Toodles (June Clyde)? She is determined to be the first to discover who dispatched Silas.

If you ask me there seems to be something going on between the two.

One of my favorite scenes is where the servant Jeff (Fred 'Snowflake' Toones) is confronted by a phantom waving its arms.

Another plus is that all the actors are displayed with their real names, instead of just a bunch of disembodies names scrolling on the screen.

They also hurried the story or this could have been an excellent case.

A fairly good murder mystery of the Old Dark House variety. It has many of the cliches of the genre, but also avoids many of the usual cliches, & has an interesting storyline. June Clyde is cute & vivacious as a newspaper reporter. Regis Toomey is adequate as the police lieutenant. Dwight Frye is a bit nutty in a small roll (still recovering from his role in "Dracula"?). There are a couple of murders, but disappointingly, no secret passageways or doors & no thunderstorm. There is a mysterious figure walking around in oversized monk's robes, though, & that's pretty neat. Good effort by all, but falls a little short. I rate it 6/10.

It's a short B mystery. Wealthy William V. Mong calls together his relatives to tell them that they're despicable and he's writing a new will. Before he can sign it, he collapses and dies. Detective Regis Toomey comes in to question them. While he is doing so, reporter June Clyde comes in, sasses him, and assists him in his investigation.

If you're looking for a script with plenty of red herrings and everyone a likely-looking suspect, this is a decent B movie for you. If you're looking for a decent mystery, in which the audience has all the clues before the murderer is announced, it fails. There's one key piece of evidence that is withheld until the murderer is caught.

It's co-directed by Sennett veterans Hampton Del Ruth and Phil Whitman; Del Ruth took a co-writing credit. The comedic larks are limited to Miss Clyde, who enters the crime scene by by claiming to be the widow of the murdered man, and by annoying Toomey by behaving like a naughty child. There's also 'Snowflake' Toones doing his cowardly bit. Other than that, it's one of those mysteries that could be a decent radio play ... except for the withheld clue.

Cameraman Leon Shamroy gets a few grace notes, with a camera that pans a bit and a couple of point-of-view shots. They may have satisfied him, but they don't add much.

So this film was made on Poverty Row, where actors went to make a quick buck when the big studios weren't underpaying them. The only thing that makes this film memorable compared to the dozens of others with more or less the same plot is the inclusion of Dwight Frye of Renfeild fame as one of the relatives.

An angry old man gathers his relatives for the reading of his will, after dissing many of them, he has a fainting spell and is found with a bad case of a dagger to the heart.

The rest of the movie is a detective and reporter romantic couple trying to unravel the case. It also includes a not-so-fun racist stereotype of the easily frightened black domestic employee... because that stuff was funny to people in the 1930's.

Like many of these early 1930's films, there's no music (they hadn't figured that out yet) and the blocking of the movie was more like a stage play.

This movie is a whodunit dressed-up like a mix of Midnight Faces (1926) with The Cat and the Canary (1927).

There is a clever twist to how the murder itself is effected, but unfortunately the story containing it is rather meager; it could have been presented in perhaps 20 minutes, rather than in the hour expended.

As in various other films, an independent investigator whose behavior is plainly illegal is tolerated rather than taken into custody or even expelled. The explanatory device, in this case, is that the officer in charge is in love with her, but credibility is over-stretched.

That officer ultimately solves the case using evidence withheld from the audience while in his possession; that evidence is not particularly surprising, but it also is not sufficiently strong, especially given that the officer had to rely upon testimony as to events at the time of the murder, rather that being himself a witness to it.

Another flaw in this story, common to a great many films of the period, is the presence of a stereotyped black servant -- dim-witted, superstitious, cowardly, and slow-moving except when terrified.