Watch The Lady in Scarlet For Free

Wow! Such a good movie.

It is a performances centric movie

Captivating movie !

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

During the 1930s and 40s, the quality as well as cheapo studios made zillions of murder mystery films--so many that it's easy to get them all mixed up in your head. While some of the films were stand-outs, such as the Charlie Chan or Saint films, too many just weren't made very well or offered nothing but retreads of the same old same old characters and stories. In many ways, "The Lady in Scarlett" is yet another dreary mystery films--with the usual get 'em all together in a room and get one of them to incriminate him/herself at the end of the film finale. These were ludicrous but so many of the films followed this same sort of formula. In most ways, this film did too...but fortunately, it did offer two things to set it apart--Reginald Denny's erudite persona and his assistant, who was anything but! In fact, she was a complete smart aleck and kept me interested in an otherwise passable film. Well worth seeing just because of her!

Even though this is a predictable murder mystery with the victim (John T. Murray) seemingly deserving of becoming the victim, there's a lot to enjoy in this "B" programmer where the dialog makes an otherwise predictable storyline more enjoyable. The story is set up with the extremely jealous Murray making it clear to his wife (Dorothy Revier) that he is keeping a close watch on her, being totally aware of her infidelities, while the obviously embittered daughter (Claudia Dell) from his first marriage makes it clear that Revier is the prime suspect. There's also assorted business partners or rivals and Dell's fiancée (whom Murray disapproved of), all questioned by playboy private detective Reginald Denny and his wise-cracking "Girl Friday" (Patricia Farr).It's Farr's character who gets the bulk of the great dialog here, saying such great hard-boiled lines as "He can't work overtime. It interferes with his drinking". When she finds her employer/lover on the phone, she makes her own suspicions known by saying, "I know you didn't go into that booth to fix your girdle!". The wife/lover, daughter/fiancée characters are not sterotypically one-dimensional, giving reasonable motives for each of them as to why they might want to see Murray killed off. Not bad for a bottom of the barrel second feature where the camera moved in obviously very close onto the set to hide how cramped and small it really was.

This is generally an 'in the middle' murder mystery and detective story, but considering it's mid-Thirties release it's got a few things going for it. What sells it is the banter between private detective Oliver Keith (Reginald Denny) and his attractive younger secretary Ella (Patricia Farr). It would have been more believable if the story kept any semblance of a relationship between the two out of it, as Denny was twice as old as his co-star in real life. But for the most part it worked, especially at the end when they smooched it up to allay viewer fears that Denny's character might have been a bit too abusive.For all intents and purposes, this could have been virtually any movie detective's show of the era - think Charlie Chan, Mister Wong, Bulldog Drummond, or the favorite on this board, Nick Charles. The story plants a number of red herrings surrounding the murder of antique dealer Albert Sayre (John T. Murray), the most obvious being his wife Julia (Dorothy Revier), and business associate Dyker (Jack Adair). The mystery is solved using your typical 'gather all the suspects in one room' approach, as the detective hero successfully conveys the solution of the case by eliminating the suspects one by one.The bigger mystery once the film is over is how they came up with the title. The term 'Lady in Scarlet' was mentioned early on in reference to a play Albert and Julia Sayre were discussing, she having favored one called 'The Frolic of '32'. However none of the principal female characters had any connection to the title by virtue of their attire. Be that as it may, it made me think of a similarly named Sherlock Holmes flick from a decade later called "The Woman in Green". In either case, who could tell when the picture's in black and white.

Universal was the only major Hollywood studio to have regular dealings with Poverty Row, so it comes as something of a surprise to see a 20th Century-Fox package wrapped up in the mantle of Chesterfield producer, George R. Batcheller. Admittedly, by Mr Batcheller's extremely sparse expenditure norms, the budget for this one is somewhat superior, but nonetheless the witty script by Fox's ace writing team of Robert Ellis and Helen Logan is not all that well served by plodding Reginald Denny (at least he plays the role straight) as the egomaniac detective and most of the second-string support players. Thomas, Bush, Murray and Kelly are especially dull in key roles, but fortunately the girls are okay. In fact, Patricia Farr (part of the Fox package) is quite winning as the put-upon secretary (even though she is forced to wear the same drab outfit throughout the entire movie). As for the solution of the mystery, this is a bit of a let-down, although it will come as no surprise to most fans. The real killer is Charles Lamont's scrupulously unexciting direction.