The Preview Murder Mystery (1936) User Reviews

Behind-the-scenes mystery

[the_mysteriousx · 7/10 · 18 June 2005]

This 1936 film from director Robert Florey is a return for him to the field of dark films, a path he almost started on early in his career. Florey did Murders in the Rue Morgue in 1932 as a consolation for being dropped from Frankenstein. In 1935 he directed The Florentine Dagger, another thriller. The Preview Murder Mystery was his most taut suspense film up to that date.

It is almost an ensemble piece with Reginald Denny and Frances Drake as the romantic leads, but there isn't much time for romance in this 60 minute murder mystery. What stands out most here is the editing. There are simply a TON of shots in this film. I don't think there is a single shot that lasts more than 10 seconds. Florey gives us every angle and many points of view for each scene and there are many short scenes so that if you get up to go to the bathroom, you'll miss a good chunk of the details. It's a pretty simple plot, but with many twists. An actor is threatened to be murdered before the preview of the movie he is shooting. After the screening he is found dead and the actress and director are next on the murderer's wish list.

Ian Keith puts in a nice turn as the suspicious director. Rod LaRoque is good early as the doomed lead actor. Gail Patrick basically gets to look beautiful and Denny and Drake make a decent team, but they just don't have too much to do. This is really a director's piece and Florey makes the most of all of his opportunities. He even gets to do a mock horror film scene late in the movie that looks good, and there is a comedy scene of another film being shot on a different stage with Chester Conklin in a cameo. Curios they are, but these are gratuitous, and unfortunately almost kill the pace of this movie just as we are about to reach the conclusion. All in all though, a nice way to spend an hour for classic mystery buffs.

The bits are better than the whole

[dbborroughs · 6/10 · 25 June 2011]

Someone first threatens and then kills people connected with one film at a film studio. Reginald Reginald Denny investigates.

Robert Florey sends up life in a film studio in an okay murder mystery. It's more intriguing for the throw away stuff then the main plot which never seems to be what Florey is interested in.

Watching the film I was shocked at how retro the film felt. It seemed more like a film from 1932 or 1933 as opposed 1936. There is a denseness to to the staging with everyone all crowded around the center of the frame. You got this in early sound films because of the mics- but not in 1936.

It's good but it's not quite great

The Preview murder mystery

[coltras35 · 7/10 · 3 March 2023]

The star of "Song of the Toreador" receives threatening messages that he will not survive the preview screening of the film. The studio publicist works with the Director, the Producer and the police, to discover who is behind the threats.

Rather good mystery with a pacy plot, good chemistry between Reginald Denny and Drake - Drake plays an astrology obsessed person. Denny wants to marry her but she says their stars don't align. This is an entertaining mystery with a fine insight of film making of that period. A nice look at paramount studio backlot- the camera angles are great, capturing things nicely.

Pretty interesting

[searchanddestroy-1 · 7 February 2023]

Pretty inventive, daring, smart, brilliant, and because I guess the Robert Florey directing. What a very sophisticated little thriller, evoking the sound era in Hollywood industry, using it for a true mystery yarn. I did not mind the talking instead of action scenes because, I repeat, this story is pretty good, exciting. But if you are reluctant to the early talkies, maybe it will be a bit difficult for you. Robert Florey was a convincing B director from the forties and late thirties too. Many crime films and dramas, some adventures flicks, short and tense, before goung to the Tv industry with always the same talent.

Paramount Studios In Dutch Angles

[boblipton · 6/10 · 16 June 2019]

Rod Larocque is starring in the sound remake of one of the studio's great silent pictures. The original starred Conway Tearle and his wife, Gail Patrick, and was directed by Ian Keith. Tearle was bound for superstardom, but an accident claimed his looks, and shortly afterwards, another his life. The remake likewise stars Miss Patrick and her second husband, Mr. Keith, directs

However, Larocque has been getting threatening notes that he won't live to see the new picture. When he dies during the premiere, it turns out to be poison... and then, during the production of her next picture, a prop gun aimed at Miss Patrick turns out to hold real bullets.

It's a pretty good murder mystery, directed by Robert Florey, showing off the Paramount studio using a lot of Dutch angles. Florey spent his career as a good journeyman director, always trying out interesting shots, so much so that they dominated his pictures... and he never got much higher than the programmers. Paramount's wealth of talent, in front of and behind the camera helped make this a very watchable movie, with Karl Struss as DP, and a cast that includes Reginald Denny, George Barbier, Thomas Jackson and a wealth of faded but still skilled performers. Had this been a production at Fox or RKO or one of the minors, this would have been a top-grade A picture. At Paramount, it was just another interesting release.

Hollywood backstage murder mystery

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 2 September 2023]

It's the World Attractions studio. They are remaking a classic musical. Leading man Neil Du Beck is receiving threats. During a preview, Du Beck is found dead from a suspicious overdose. There are more incidents at the studio and the police orders a lockdown.

This is a bit of behind-the-scenes of a movie shoot and a murder mystery. The actors are not big enough. Nobody is overtaking the screen. More than anything, it's a fun peak behind the camera with early Hollywood. The murder mystery is functional B-movie. This movie needs a more compelling lead character to head the investigation and solve the mystery.

"You'll wake up with a kink in your medulla oblongata!"

[classicsoncall · 7/10 · 11 August 2023]

By B movie standards, this one comes pretty close to being a feature film. Not going by its length obviously, but for the quality of the sets and cinematography. The principals aren't bad either, although given any of the lead players, none seem to occupy a lot of screen time individually. With typed murder threats leveled against the main persons involved in the remake of a film titled "Song of the Toreador", the police have their hands full in quarantining an entire back lot, securing seven hundred people behind locked studio gates while a murderer remains on the loose. It's played for some comedy as well as drama, with even a movie 'Batman' (Henry Brandon) making an appearance as a frightened vegetarian who can't deal with the suspense! To guess the identity of the killer one has to stretch a bit, as it requires belief that an esteemed actor of seven years prior faked his own death following a disfiguring fire that ruined his face. Seeking revenge on the actor (Rod La Rocque) in a remake of his earlier triumph, Edwin Strange (Conway Tearle) also has it out for his former wife (Gail Patrick), now married to his original director (Ian Keith). Although Strange is smoked out by the authorities, the final scene fades out with publicity manager of World Attractions, Johnny Morgan (Reginald Denny) in a clinch with his secretary/girlfriend (Frances Drake) after she finally agreed to accept his proposal. It's almost as if they were the picture's main characters!

Florey and Struss tackle a fast-paced film noir

[JohnHowardReid · 10/10 · 27 December 2006]

The only disappointing aspect of this wow of a movie is that (aside from a brief shot of Charlie Ruggles which I suspect is a newsreel clip) we don't see any guest stars. But perhaps it's just as well. There's really no time for them. And there's always a danger they could slow up the action which moves like the proverbial express train from start to finish. Not only does director Robert Florey keep the wittily suspenseful screen-play sparking on all six cylinders, he does so by using an extraordinarily large variety and number of camera set-ups. Most shots are held for only a few seconds and very few (perhaps only five or six) of the set-ups are repeated (which makes for brilliant film-making, but it's also quite extraordinary).

By "B"-picture standards, production values are right out of the box. Not only are many of the multiple sets absolutely crowded with extra players but Florey has invented lots of inside gags. As might be expected he has used some of his technicians to augment the crowd, but has enjoyably switched their roles. Thus the assistant director Fritz Collings appears on camera as the sound man, while director of photography Karl Struss has been demoted to camera operator and film editor James Smith can be glimpsed as an assistant in his own cutting-room.

Needless to say, the whole movie was lensed on "location" inside Paramount Studios itself. These are the real sound stages, this is the real back lot, those are the real Paramount gates. That's why most of the action takes place at night. The movie had to be lensed when everyone else at the studio had gone home (which is probably the main reason we don't see any guest stars).

It's obvious that Florey had a lot of fun making this picture. I love his "horror" take with the bat man made up like the somnambulist in Caligari explaining to the director that he's actually scared silly because he's a vegetarian. And notice that director E. Gordon Smith is handed some Ernst Lubitsch mannerisms including peering at the action through the cameraman's viewing glass (actually borrowed from Struss for this occasion. He always wore it. He had it looped on a long cord around his neck).

The screenplay offers not only a tingling, fast-moving, hair-raising mystery thriller but a whole gallery of fascinating characters creatively brought to life by a group of surprisingly charismatic (if second-string) players. Oddly top-billed (her role is not only small but comparatively unimportant) is the now-forgotten Frances Drake who was enjoying a brief run as a leading "B"-movie star at the time. She's not only extremely pretty but delightfully personable, so the surprise is not that she's top-billed in this one, but that her reign extended for only five or six years.

For once, Reginald Denny does well by the hero spot and doesn't over-do the comedy. It's the stunning Gail Patrick, however, who walks away with the picture's acting honors, strongly supported by Ian Keith, George Barbier, Thomas Jackson, Conway Tearle and the little-known Jack Raymond who has one of his largest roles here in a largely uncredited 100-picture career.

And now a final few words about the marvelously film-noirish photography. Critics (both contemporary and present day) as well as Struss himself regard this as one of his finest films, so it's doubly good to see him on camera here, both artistically and histrionically (I think he even has one word of dialogue: "Yep!"), although I should mention that Struss had his own camera which he certainly used for the studio exteriors. I don't know for sure whether the bulky Paramount camera he's pretending to operate was actually used to photograph any scenes in the movie at all, but I would say probably not. The camera-work is so fluid it seems to me that Struss' own more portable camera with its turret lens was used throughout.

It's In the Stars!!!

[kidboots · 9/10 · 16 May 2012]

Director Robert Florey had first come to Hollywood in the early 1920s as a reporter for the French "Cinemagazine" to interview stars for a series of articles on Hollywood. He felt so at home that he stayed and his easy going nature made him many friends - he always felt a great camaraderie with the old stars. His films are often characterized with experimental camera work (he had made a few avant garde shorts during the late 20s). "The Preview Murder Mystery" is a re-working of an early Paramount talkie "The Studio Murder Mystery" (1929) which starred an up and coming Frederic March as an insufferable matinée idol whose death leaves many people as suspects. Florey asked Paramount to offer the role of Neil Du Beck to his old friend John Gilbert who he had met on his very first day in Hollywood. Gilbert had not worked in a while and was finding comfort in alcohol and when Paramount did not meet his price he refused the part. Unfortunately Gilbert died while the film was still shooting.

Neil Du Beck (Rod La Rocque) is World Attractions (Paramount) fastest rising actor who is due to become a star of the first magnitude with the release of "Song of the Toreador". The director Gordon Smith (Ian Keith) has remade it from one of his greatest silent successes featuring the greatest star of the day Edwin Strange (Conway Tearle). No one is holding out much hope for it's success as Du Beck has been receiving threatening letters claiming he will not live to see the movie previewed, so he and the rest of the cast are pretty jumpy. Again no one is taking the threats seriously until he is actually killed, then afterwards everyone remembers Smith's suspicious behaviour - then Smith is found dead!!!

Apart from Conway Tearle, Jack Mulhall, Bryant Washburn and Chester Conklin probably gave the audiences of the day a trip down memory lane. There was even an illusionary thrill - through the cobwebby sets a man bursts through - it is Du Beck, but no, it is his stand-in (Du Beck had died earlier in the movie)!! There is even a parody on "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" with similar sets etc, but when the young actor (Henry Brandon) who plays "Batboy" refuses to go on due to fear and stress and then confesses he is a vegetarian because meat makes him nervous - the director is disgusted!!! The ending is a surprise but is definitely in keeping with Florey's love of old Hollywood and unlike "Hollywood Boulevard" the slight romantic subplot between Reginald Denny and Frances Drake doesn't get in the way of the main mystery.

Just a couple of years before, Gail Patrick had been a sweet ingenue but she was now perfecting her icy brittleness which would see her a standout in "My Man Godfrey".

Sometimes "B" Means "Better"

[dwknuj · 8/10 · 21 July 2023]

Yes, this is a B-picture. But as I said in my subject heading, this is a case of the B standing for Better.

The director, Robert Florey, did a remarkable job of covering up the strain placed on what must have been his modest budget. My favorite feature of this film is the innovative cinematography. Look at the use of shadows and its interplay with patches of light. Look at the use of Dutch tilts, making the environs of the studio look dangerous and mysterious. You can turn the sound off and just admire the camera man's craft.

There was one fascinating sequence involving the Batman. We spend a few moments on a set that looks like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari with a character that looks like Conrad Veidt. We learn that he's portraying a character called "the Batman." This movie was done in 1936. The Batman character that we know first emerged from the Batcave in May, 1939. This movie may mark the first appearance of a character named the Batman on a movie screen.

If you'd like a fun time capsule trip to see moviemaking in the mid 30's, this is your movie.

I guessed the identity of the killer early on...but the film was still terrific for a B-movie

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 15 September 2023]

Originally, a 'B-movie' was a shorter film intended as a second or lesser film at a double-feature. This does not mean they were necessarily bad...just cheaply and quickly made. And, instead of being 90 minutes or more like most A-pictures, the B ran from 50-65 minutes. Because the budgets were low and turnaround time very fast, many of them were pretty bad...but most were just ordinary time-passers. "The Preview Murder Mystery" is something different...it's one of the better Bs.

A new movie is about to debut and something odd is happening...someone is sending death threats to the leading man. So, while it's supposed to be a breakout film making him a star, his shining moment is marred with concerns about murder. Well, despite the police watching carefully, the man IS murdered in the middle of the preview for this film. But this isn't enough for the killer...and soon other folks connected with this movie begin to receive similar notes and attempts on their lives.

While I picked up on who the killer probably was early in the picture, it didn't really ruin the movie for me. Why? Because, despite being a B, the acting, direction and script were quite good. While hundreds or more B-murder mystery films were made, this one is very different and doesn't suffer from the usual cliches (such as the REALLY dopey cops). It's solid and very entertaining...and deserves to be seen as better than just another B.