A likeable, if highly contrived comic-mystery from Golden Age Hollywood, pairing two of its best known light-entertainment actors, William Powell and Jean Arthur. Powell had already established his leading-man credentials at the box office, particularly with the hugely successful "The Thin Man" while Arthur is still something of a work-in-progress, although she's almost the finished article as his independent, smart-Alice ex-wife whose main aim is to have him re-marry her.
Sure, the film looks like an excuse to get these two together in a film which could almost have been titled "After The Thin Man", before that particular sequel, the first of many, hit the streets, as it follows the familiar pattern of a mildly warring couple who get involved in murder mysteries. This particular story starts off with the suspicious death of a jockey just about to win a big race in which a number of people seem to have a big financial interest. As the bodies pile-up, both Mr (in truth Dr) and Mrs Bradford compile a list of seven potential suspects and do that Agatha Christie thing of gathering them all in the one confined spot, the better to flush out the perpetrator of the dirty deeds.
The plot really is fantastical and coincidental from the almost unbelievable modus operandum of the killer, to the highly improbable way the plot takes the Bradfords along with it with every twist and turn.
Listen, I quite enjoyed it and am not going to judge it too harshly. Powell is smooth and debonair, never out of suit, shirt and tie the whole movie, while Arthur gets to swan about wise-cracking here and there mostly in pretty swank evening-wear. The direction is stolid and rather static, with the camera often pointed four-square on a character just as they're about to deliver their lines. Both the lead actors here made better films of this type than this so-so effort but I still enjoyed the combination even if the material they're working on is a little thinner than "The Thin Man" I'd have to say.
Sure, the film looks like an excuse to get these two together in a film which could almost have been titled "After The Thin Man", before that particular sequel, the first of many, hit the streets, as it follows the familiar pattern of a mildly warring couple who get involved in murder mysteries. This particular story starts off with the suspicious death of a jockey just about to win a big race in which a number of people seem to have a big financial interest. As the bodies pile-up, both Mr (in truth Dr) and Mrs Bradford compile a list of seven potential suspects and do that Agatha Christie thing of gathering them all in the one confined spot, the better to flush out the perpetrator of the dirty deeds.
The plot really is fantastical and coincidental from the almost unbelievable modus operandum of the killer, to the highly improbable way the plot takes the Bradfords along with it with every twist and turn.
Listen, I quite enjoyed it and am not going to judge it too harshly. Powell is smooth and debonair, never out of suit, shirt and tie the whole movie, while Arthur gets to swan about wise-cracking here and there mostly in pretty swank evening-wear. The direction is stolid and rather static, with the camera often pointed four-square on a character just as they're about to deliver their lines. Both the lead actors here made better films of this type than this so-so effort but I still enjoyed the combination even if the material they're working on is a little thinner than "The Thin Man" I'd have to say.