Murder at the Vanities [Blu-ray]

Director: Mitchell Leisen Mitchell Leisen

Overview

+The Earl Carroll Vanities, a popular Broadway revue of the 1930s and '40s, is the setting for this murder mystery interspersed with an assortment of variety acts, including Duke Ellington performing "Ebony Rhapsody" and a novelty number called "Marijuana." Victor McLaglen stars as Bill Murdock, a detective investigating a series of murders during the opening night of a new edition of the +Vanities. When private detective Sadie Evans (Gail Patrick) is found murdered, Murdock must investigate between musical numbers to find the killer. When Rita Rose (Gertrude Michael) next turns up dead, Murdock concludes young ingenue Ann Ware (Kitty Carlisle) is the next person marked for death. Murdock has to find the murderer before the ending of the show or else he or she could disappear in the departing crowd of theatergoers.

Product Details

Release Date:	10/11/2022
UPC:	0738329260620
Original Release:	1934
Rating:	NR
Source:	Kl Studio Classics
Language:	English
Time:	1:29:00

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Carl Brisson	Eric Lander
Victor McLaglen	Police Lt. Bill Murdock
Kitty Carlisle	Ann Ware
Jack Oakie	Jack Ellery
Dorothy Stickney	Norma Watson
Gertrude Michael	Rita Ross
Jessie Ralph	Mrs. Helen Smith
Charles Middleton	Homer Boothby,Homer Boothby
Gail Patrick	Sadie Evans
Donald Meek	Dr. Saunders
Otto Hoffman	Walsh
Charles McAvoy	Ben
Beryl Wallace	Beryl
Barbara Fritchie	Vivien
Toby Wing	Nancy
Lona Andre	Lona
Colin Tapley	Stage Manager
William Arnold	Treasurer
Cecil Weston	Miss Bernstein
Hal Greene	Call Boy
Stanley Blystone	Policeman
Betty Bethune	Fat Charwoman
Ann Sheridan	Lou
Gwenllian Gill	Gwen
Ernestine Anderson	Earl Carroll Girl
Marion Callahan	Earl Carroll Girl
Dorothy Dawes	Earl Carroll Girl
Ruth Hilliard	Earl Carroll Girl
Constance Jordan	Earl Carroll Girl
Evelyn Kelly	Earl Carroll Girl
Leda Necova	Earl Carroll Girl
Wanda Perry	Earl Carroll Girl
Laurie Shevlin	Earl Carroll Girl
Anya Taranda	Earl Carroll Girl
Dave O'Brian	Chorus Boy
Teru Shimada	Koto
Dorothy White	Dancer
Arthur Johnson	Composer

Technical Credits

Sam Hellman

Carey Wilson

Mitchell Leisen	Director
E. Lloyd Sheldon	Producer
Sam Hellman	Screenwriter
Carey Wilson	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

One of the more notorious of the pre-Code films, Murder at the Vanities is not a great film by any means, but it's a great deal of fun. Combining the musical and murder mystery genres was an interesting idea, and it works fairly well, despite a screenplay that, a few great wisecracks aside, is fairly lame. The story is delightfully lurid, but not especially well written, with red herrings thrown in willy-nilly yet still not able to make the unmasking of the killer a surprise. Vanities also has some terribly wooden acting from Kitty Carlisle and Carl Brisson (although both are in good voice for their musical numbers) and a disappointingly dull performance from Victor McLaglen. Jack Oakie is fun, Toby Wing livens things occasionally, and Dorothy Stickney has some good moments, but the real fun in Murder is in the musical numbers. "Cocktails for Two" is the score's "standard," but there's more fun to be had from the feather-filled "Live and Love Tonight" and even more fun from the film's two highlights, "Marihuana" and "Ebony Rhapsody." The former is a surreal reefer number featuring gigantic cacti (the flowers of which contain nude women) and a delirious, desire-laden Gertrude Michael performance; the latter is a bizarre desecration of the "Hungarian Rhapsody," with a swinging Duke Ellington performance, that ends with an actor portraying Franz Liszt gunning down the cast. These numbers alone, so strange and so utterly fantastic, make the film worth catching.