mark.waltz Review of Who Is Hope Schuyler?

Who Is Hope Schuyler? (1942)

Too many female suspects spoil the stew.

[3/10 · 26 September 2018]

This tangled mess of a murder mystery simply features way too many characters, clues, suspects and plot twists to be interesting and straight forward, especially for a B film starring forgotten actors of yesteryear. Everybody is talking about the elusive Hope Schuyler and nobody knows who she is, what she looks like, and what the purpose of her importance in the trial of crooked politicians. At only an hour, it rambles in its script, even if there are a few moments of thrills and a spectacular car crash and explosion at an old fashioned airport. The women all seem to be cut from the same cloth: big hair, even larger hats, and all filled with nasty comments about each other and toting their own virtues. At one point, I began to think that the idle Hope might actually be a he. Former matinee idol Ricardo Cortez adds the only spark in a supporting villain role with leading man Joseph Allen trying but failing to create any heat. Some amusing lines might be nice to remember if I had thought to describe the outfit each woman was wearing and what their character name was and what they said, but they are all off the same assembly line. Only the sequences I mention above and the five minute denouncement in the conclusion (everybody gathered together, naturally) were of interest to me. The rest of the film, a complete B for "Bah".