Review: Murder!


Actor Herbert Marshall serves on a jury that convicts actress Norah Baring of the murder of a young woman in the same acting group. He’s the lone dissenting voice, and unhappy with the decision made, decides to play detective. Phyllis Konstam and Edward Chapman run the local theatre. Esme Percy plays a female impersonator.

Pretty good early Hitchcock (“Vertigo”, “Shadow of a Doubt”, “Strangers on a Train”) whodunit from 1930 unfortunately has a conclusion I could see coming a mile away, and a voice-over for the characters’ inner thoughts that has become tired nowadays. Marshall is particularly good in the lead, and I’d suggest “12 Angry Men” is a little indebted to this film for one sequence (not to mention Hitch’s own, later “Stage Fright” which contains one helluva similar premise). Memorable climax, even if the culprit is obvious fairly early on. Perhaps that’s a sign of the film’s vintage, though I wouldn’t exactly say the film has dated.

 

The screenplay is by Alma Reville (“The Skin Game”, “The Lady Vanishes”, “Shadow of a Doubt”), Walter C. Mycroft, and The Master himself, based on a novel by Clemence Dane (“Vacation From Marriage”) and Helen Simpson (Hitch’s “Sabotage”). The film is recommended more to Hitchcock completists, but is nonetheless one of his better earlier films, certainly.

 
Rating: B-

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