Murder! (1930)

An actor in a local theater group is murdered and a fellow actress (Norah Baring) is convicted of the crime. Juror and famous thespian Sir John (Herbert Marshall) felt pressured to vote guilty and now wants to clear her name. She is so pretty, after all.

What follows is a better than fair police procedural, except instead of the police investigating, it’s the famous Sir John. He visits the crime scene, interviews witnesses and suspects, and uses his fame to subtly manipulate people into getting what he wants. If this were made in Hollywood a couple years later, I could see them wanting to make two 70 minute Sir John mysteries a year.

It’s revealed that Sir John had actually met the defendant when she came for career advice years earlier. I think even 95 years ago this would have invalidated him as a juror. Also interesting is that Norah and her character shared a last name. Character actress Una O’Connor appears in the earliest role I’ve seen her in. She was a fresh faced fifty year old. I was hoping for another memorable over-the-top performance, but she played it fairly straight.

One character is described as being “half-caste” which is olde-english for biracial, a terrible thing back in the day. However, this was a substitute because the filmmakers couldn’t imply he was the G-A-Y.

Murder! is a fairly entertaining story, even if it doesn’t feel very Hitchcock. It was his second fully sound feature and first successful one. AMRU 3.