Bill Boyd is reporter Steve Haines, hot on the trail of an crooked financier who has decided to
leave the states on a cruise-boat - or has he ? Of course, as he took
all his frauded money along on the ride, everybody wants a piece of him,
but, during an amateur stage play, he is shot. Once dead, it turns out
he wasn't the crooked financier at all but his equally crooked twin
brother, but still suspects & motives pile up, & it is for
reporter Boyd & captain Lloyd Ingraham to find the killer. Might it
be actor Clarence Geldart, who was tricked out of his fortunes by the
victim's brother ? His daughter Sheila Terry ? His former lover Eleanor
Hunt ? Gangster LeRoy Mason ? Louis Natheaux, who stole the victim's
money ? Someone completely different ? No, silly, it was of course
... the captain, who we of course least suspected (well, apart from
Boyd), & our ace reporter has it all sorted out in 61 minutes, &
he even gets
the girl (Sheila Terry).
Another one of these "I-never-thought-he-did-it"-whodunits,
& not one of the better ones, because though the movie takes much of
its running time to set up all ists relevant characters - the murder
doesn't even take place 'till halfway through - it deliberately refuses
to give the audience any information about the killer as character at
all, making it more of a "I-never-thought-he-did-anything"-
than "-did-it"-movie, but then again I might be overly
critical, because on the other hand, once the murder actually took place
(& it took some time before it did), the movie is rather well paced
& even entertaining as a light murder mystery. By the way, I love
the title, it's actually one of my 3 all time favourite movie titles,
the others being Burn-'em up Barnes & Rip Roaring Riley. |