"Somebody died from drinking too much booze."
"The man literally drank himself to death. A weak heart helped some, I imagine."
That's an eerily prescient Cause Of Death at the heart of this murder mystery. Except Flynn's not the stiff, he's the amateur private detective. And one with a light comic touch, too.
It's sad that an actor so beautiful and yes, so talented, could not have been put to use in more comedies. He had the timing and the twinkle in his eye for it. And gratefully, to modern eyes, he didn't resort to the excruciating screwball ham-boning that mars so many first-decade comedy talkies. Flynn pretends to be Tex in a dinner scene with showgirl Blondie White. He plays the hick - his accent and physicality - with just the right level of doofus without venturing into farce. If you can't laugh at that you better check your pulse.
And check out the interrogation he gets from his wife and mother-in-law when he sneaks back into the house. They show just the right balance of peevishness and willingness to believe his blarney, without coming across as empty-headed on one hand, or harpies on the other. That's deft directing.
Brenda Marshall, even when she's supposed to be angry with her husband, is so darn attractive it's spooky. She really got to show her own acting talent here. Following their pairing in the transcendant The Sea Hawk, I'm shocked Flynn and Marshall weren't teamed up more often.
Frankly, this whole thing is so charming I can't believe they didn't turn this into a series. It's got way better legs than the criminally over-rated Thin Man series, which took a decent premise and beat it to death over the years, to the point where the only thing worth caring about by the last instalment was whether Nick Charles would die of alcoholism. Haha. Look at me, Nora, I'm completely sh!t-faced before noon! Where's Asta? Woof.
That's an eerily prescient Cause Of Death at the heart of this murder mystery. Except Flynn's not the stiff, he's the amateur private detective. And one with a light comic touch, too.
It's sad that an actor so beautiful and yes, so talented, could not have been put to use in more comedies. He had the timing and the twinkle in his eye for it. And gratefully, to modern eyes, he didn't resort to the excruciating screwball ham-boning that mars so many first-decade comedy talkies. Flynn pretends to be Tex in a dinner scene with showgirl Blondie White. He plays the hick - his accent and physicality - with just the right level of doofus without venturing into farce. If you can't laugh at that you better check your pulse.
And check out the interrogation he gets from his wife and mother-in-law when he sneaks back into the house. They show just the right balance of peevishness and willingness to believe his blarney, without coming across as empty-headed on one hand, or harpies on the other. That's deft directing.
Brenda Marshall, even when she's supposed to be angry with her husband, is so darn attractive it's spooky. She really got to show her own acting talent here. Following their pairing in the transcendant The Sea Hawk, I'm shocked Flynn and Marshall weren't teamed up more often.
Frankly, this whole thing is so charming I can't believe they didn't turn this into a series. It's got way better legs than the criminally over-rated Thin Man series, which took a decent premise and beat it to death over the years, to the point where the only thing worth caring about by the last instalment was whether Nick Charles would die of alcoholism. Haha. Look at me, Nora, I'm completely sh!t-faced before noon! Where's Asta? Woof.