Powerful

hyped garbage

Great Film overall

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

This little mystery is great fun, and zips along familiar cinematic paths with professional skill, all the Warner technicians called into play to fashion a quickie "B" mystery with some of the best of the character actors around, and one new guy, Turhan Bey, who was still wet behind the ears, but managed to be "clever and cunning" and craftily mysterious.From the opening shots on a foggy wharf, with a mysterious large box hoisted off as ship and into a truck, the extremely mobile camera transports us quickly to an English boarding house crammed with lamps and antimacassars and ferns and portraits and zooms from upstairs to downstairs and in and out of doors as suspects in a crime skulk about and share concerns and accusations with mild hysteria lurking just below their civilized surfaces.But this is not a serious film; it is a fast-paced gem full of strange relationships, a murder or two, folks running about in disguises, and, at last, a clueless police force showing up as things get out of hand, a couple of bodies in locked upstairs rooms. I was never bored, was often amused, had a devil of a time attempting to pin down who-done-it, and much enjoyed the offbeat characters written into the script. Would that much of today's major films had the virtues of succinctness!

Residents of a boarding house become suspects when one of the owners is murdered, the maid goes missing, and a mysterious easterner is involved in shady dealings. Romantic triangles, smuggled boxes, and a strange veiled lady complicate the plot.Average whodunit, very much in the light-hearted style of the time. There's the amateur sleuth, the ingénue, the comical cops, and a collection of sinister and not-so-sinister types. Unfortunately, the direction lacks imagination or style. The dense, talky script is filmed in pedestrian fashion adding little to the stage play origin. Some suspense builds in generic fashion as we wonder who killed Joe. However, trying to cram the many story subplots into an hour's format squanders narrative focus, thus weakening suspense. Heather Angel as the ingénue Sylvia adds much needed spark, while Mary Field as the spinsterish Miss Snell manages a degree of pathos. The unusual ending is, I think, a matter of taste. All in all, as a mystery, the programmer doesn't live up to its opening scene, but might do for a rainy night.

Shadows on the Stairs is a B mystery film from Warners and, despite some of the British accents, it was filmed in Hollywood on the Warners lot. It's a light mystery that probably was just what the Brits needed as war was raging.Based on a Broadway play produced in 1929, the story concerns a boarding house, the Armitage, where a murder takes place. The victim is one Joe Reynolds (Paul Cavanagh), who was up to something no good with another lodger, Ram Singh (Turhan Bey) and also having a clandestine relationship with Mrs. Stella Armitage (Frieda Inescourt) herself.Ram Singh, we learn, is a patriot attempting to free India from the British. His group is to get $500,000 British pounds with Joe's help, but Joe is a racketeer.Mrs. Armitage is a wreck about Joe's business affairs and lets him know she's determined to put a stop to them. Little does she know that her husband Tom (Miles Mander) saw her and Reynolds embracing. So he's another suspect, right along with Stella and Ram Singh.Other characters include a recently fired maid, Lucy (Phyllis Barry) who was also involved with Joe. The only ones who don't seem involved are the Armitage's daughter, Sylvia (Heather Angel), and a playwright (Bruce Lester) who is in love with her. Then there's the spinster, Phoebe Martin Saint John Snell (Mary Field).With a second murder, the problem becomes even more difficult to figure out for the inspector.And the denouement will surprise you.Very well done mystery that will bring a smile to your face. The acting is delightful, with the exception perhaps of Frieda Inescourt, who seems to be playing to the last row of the National Theatre.An unusual film for Warner Brothers, but entertaining just the same.

This is a stagy film with a group of idiosyncratic characters, roaming around a boarding house. Everyone is a suspect; everyone has some strange being about them. When a man is murdered, a group of buffoonish police infiltrate the house and act like Pirates of Panzance idiots. Don't even try to talk about motivations or realities because you won't find them here. We have, of course, the handsome smug young man who is "writing his play." If this is what he came up with the cop who implies that he has no profession is probably right. The acting is stilted. Some of the characters are strictly comic and there are those long pauses for us to laugh. Whether we should hold this to today's standards or not isn't the issue. There were well-done films in 1941 as well as now. This just lacked pizazz. And the ending is most disappointing.