CURTAIN AT EIGHT

 

This is a really obscure film, made in 1933 by Majestic Pictures. It's a mystery story with a theatrical setting, and it has one of the strangest solutions to a murder one will ever see. 

Wylie Thornton (Paul Cavanagh) is a popular leading man on the stage, and a notorious Lothario off of it. He's constantly going to one woman or another, and he's even charmed the mischievous female chimpanzee who is kept backstage. One lady who is not under his spell is Lola (Dorothy Mackaill), an actress determined to keep her young sister away from the much older actor. Lola's sister commits suicide over Thornton's philandering, while the actor's wife (Natalie Moorhead) is dead set on ruining his life. A birthday party is held for Thornton one night backstage, and all the lights are turned off as a cake with lighted candles is brought out. As Thornton blows out the candles, he's shot and killed. The suspects are numerous...and among them is the clever chimp, who knows how to use a gun. 

The real star of CURTAIN AT EIGHT (other than the chimpanzee) is legendary character actor C. Aubrey Smith. Smith is now remembered as the classic Hollywood epitome of the British Empire, but here he plays an elderly American detective named Jim Hanvey. One would expect this to be major miscasting, but Aubrey goes against the grain and gives a fine performance as a folksy, slow-moving fellow who everyone else takes for granted. Smith's Hanvey is a 1930s cross between Barnaby Jones and Matlock. (While doing internet research for this post I discovered that the Hanvey character was the title role in a later film, and he was played by Guy Kibbee.) 

Dorothy Mackaill was one of the loveliest leading ladies of the Pre-Code era, but here she's relegated to a rather minor role--the chimp has far more screen time than she does. It's a shame that someone who has such a screen presence gets a small part in a very low-budget independent feature. Mackaill wouldn't be in too many more movies after this. 

Sam Hardy plays a detective who is competing with Jim Hanvey in solving the case, and he's overbearing and annoying. (He constantly says "It's in the bag!" after arresting another suspect, but he never really accomplishes anything.) Russell Hopton is the typically noisy reporter on the case, and Natalie Moorhead makes the most of her major scene as Wylie Thornton's shrewish wife. 

CURTAIN AT EIGHT has a few risque dialogue exchanges, but what makes it a true Pre-Code entry is the bizarre climax. The ending appears to give an "official" reveal of the murderer while at the same time letting the actual murderer get away. I say "appears" because it depends on how the individual viewer interprets it. If you buy the "official" version of who the murderer is, you have to admit it's a ridiculous concept--although in a movie like this it probably makes sense. 

This movie was directed by E. Mason Hopper, and the screenplay was by Edward T. Lowe (a name familiar to movie buffs). The story is enlivened by several unique scene transitions, and the staging of Thornton's murder in the dark is a nice touch, but for most of the short running time the film lives down to its low budget origins. CURTAIN AT EIGHT is weird enough to be notable, but don't expect to see much of Dorothy Mackaill.