MURDER BY THE CLOCK
US, 1931, 65 minutes, Black-and-white.
William "Stage" Boyd, Lilyan Tashman, Irving Pichel, Regis Toomey, Sally O'Neill, Blanche Frederici,
Directed by Edward Sloman.
This is a rather interesting and enjoyable small-budget feature from the early 1930s.
It opens in a graveyard and a visit to a mausoleum. An old lady does not want to be buried alive and installs an alarm system in the mausoleum. This is tested out a number of times – and then, when the plot becomes more complicated, the audiences may forget about it but the alarm does turn up quite significantly towards the end of the film.
As with so many films of the time, of dark houses and other films where wills are read and relatives manoeuvre and manipulate for inheriting, the plot is complicated by money.
The companion of the old lady has looked after her son, mentally deficient, physically presentable but ultimately sinister. He is blamed for the death of the old lady and is sent to an institution.
Meanwhile, the show is completely stolen by Lilyan Tashman as one of the most successful vamps on screen. She was to die only a few years later. This is also true of the actor playing the Detective, William “Stage� Boyd.
Lilyan Tashman is Laura is married to a rather weak nephew of the murdered woman. However, she is also carrying on an affair with an artist who is infatuated with her.
She is so manipulative that the solution of the killings is not that the mentally impaired man did them but Laura has manipulated first her husband and her lover to kill the older woman and then the lover to kill her husband. She is given very smooth, manipulative dialogue, with the touch of the nymphomaniac, doing a line for the very stern and upright Detective. To balance the seriousness with a touch of humour there is a genial policeman played by Regis Toomey.
Ultimately, action takes place in the mausoleum after the alarm goes off. Needless to say, Laura, despite postures imposing is, does not survive after a confrontation with the mentally impaired man who has escaped from the institution.
Plenty of good ingredients, better than average performances – and the mentally impaired man is played by actor-director, Irving Pichel, who made some significant Protestant religious films including The Great Commandment (1939), Miracle of the Bells (1947) and, his last two films, Martin Luther (1953) and Day of Triumph (1954).
