Murder by the Clock (1931)
IMDB meta-data is runtime of 1 hour and 16 minutes, rated 6.3 by 229 cinematizens.
Genre: Old Dark House wanna be.
Verdict: Femme très fatale.
Holding court in an Old Dark House, elderly Russian mother Putin confronts her two adult sons, both Republican Senators, one a retard and the other a spineless alcoholic. Decisively she decides then and there to leave her considerable fortune, acquired how is unknown, to the spineless alcoholic who has a very blonde wife in slinky silk and cosy furs. Elderly Mother is hale and hearty and it may be many years before she croaks. (Not now, sniggered the fraternity brothers.)
Fearing pre-mature internment in the gigantic family mausoleum across the street Elderly Mother has a baleful horn installed there for her to trigger if she wakes up dead. Well, anyway.
She signs the will in front of the assembled leeches and so signs her own death warrant. Blonde wife with the subtlety of a sledgehammer reminds sodden husband-son that Elderly Mother may live on for years before they see a thin dime so that she can buy new shoes and a sofa. The prospect of years and years and years of Blonde nagging is more than he can bear.
He comes home the next day to tell her that he has murdered his mother. Another day at the office. Blonde feigns shock and surprise but speeds to her paramour to encourage him, without quite saying it, that now is the time for him to murder the husband, which he does. Then she turns to the retard and encourages him to murder the paramour without quite saying it in express words. She will do anything to get those $5,000 Christian Louboutin stiletto shoes encrusted with blood diamonds! Move over Imelda! And that sofa of human skin.
Paramour is new to murder and does not quite finish the job on husband so Blonde takes over (and makes a rookie mistake herself).
While all these bodies are piling up Plod is nosing around, and Blonde tries her wiles on him, but he is a eunuch and his first friend does not respond. Her full frontal advances convince him she is up to no good, after all he has looked in the mirror and he knows that he is not in her looks league. Thereafter follows a cat-and-mouse game between Blonde and Plod. Bernie Olds figures as a beat cop before he got promoted to plain clothes in the Maltese Falcon (1941) and dropped the phoney Irish accent. Plod never does find the one secret passage in this wanna be Old Dark House, and has to be lead to it by someone or other.
The mausoleum horn figures in the denouement, after which Blonde goes off in cuffs to suborn the judge and jury into a not guilty finding, so she can find someone to murder Plod. Say what you like about her, she doesn’t quit.
Lilyan Tashman as Blonde is ruthless, unscrupulous, and selfish enough to be Republican Senate Leader. Plod is hopeless enough to be Barnie.
In 1931 talkies were still developing and it shows here. Each actor stands still and articulates the lines slowly and clearly. Movement and dialogue are kept separate.