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I wanted to but couldn't!

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

The acting in this movie is really good.

The real mystery here is how -- and why -- this movie got made. At a mythical college where most of the students have apparently been flunking for years -- since they're all in their thirties -- a body is found hanging outside a dorm window. Suicide? Nah! That'd only be a short subject. The poor lad was bumped off, a murder followed by two more. And if you haven't figured out who the culprit is about five minutes in, it's time to brush up on your 1930s grade-C thrillers. Charles Starrett in the days before he rode the range, can obviously act. His girl friend (whose name I'll omit out of respect) struggles to say a few lines. Hopefully, she moved on to a more suitable career. One last question. Can anyone who's seen the movie tell me why the killings were committed? If so, you're way ahead of the screenwriter.

Midway through this Chesterfield mystery, I found myself wondering: Is this plot awfully complex, or just awfully muddled? A suicide that is a murder; a stolen letter; an old photo in an album; odd family relations and relationships….Various characters guard strange secrets of the past and present. But I'm still not sure how much sense it makes.Three male leads are at the center of the story. Charles Starrett is of course the rather upright and dashing young student whose roommate is bumped off in the film's opening moments. Starrett immediately calls for assistance from his criminologist father, played by Robert Warwick in the best Holmesian style. It seems like a promising setup—a father-son team parsing clues, nabbing bad guys. But, for me at least, Starrett's character came across as overly deferential and Warwick's as annoyingly smug. Third-billed is the great Edward Van Sloan as a professor (naturally) interested in the parties involved; his character is darkly appealing but, alas, not on screen often enough.Overall, it's not a bad film, exactly, but I just couldn't feel it gain any momentum. The comic relief supplied by the moronic sheriff and his deputy is rather lame, and the rest of the cast seem to take things altogether too seriously. And there's one large red herring that would have added intrigue had it been a "real" clue....Anyway, early practice, I guess, for director Charles Lamont, who would go on to bigger and better and less serious things.

One night in a college campus a man commits suicide. Or rather he is murdered and left for dead as if he had. From here on in his friends try to piece together the mystery and discover who the killer is.A Shot in the Dark is yet another 30's mystery film. These types of films were ten a penny in the decade for some reason. I can't say I thought too much of this one though unfortunately. While it does move through its plot-line fairly methodically and logically, and while it also mercifully does not have an annoying comedy relief character I just found myself somewhat bored to tell you the absolute truth. It was slow and quite uneventful, relying on detective staples rather than thriller ones. Although one thing is for sure, college students have certainly changed a lot in the past 75 years.

This particular A Shot In The Dark has nothing whatsoever to do with Inspector Clousseau. It is however a B film murder mystery from the Poverty Row studio, Chesterfield Pictures. Before Charles Starrett decided to do westerns and much before he became the Durango Kid he starred in this film where he plays a college football star who returns home after a party and discovers his roommate James Bush hanging from their dormitory window. It was an attempt at covering up a murder of course as Bush was killed with a very sophisticated pistol that fires needle darts. As it happens Starrett is the son of criminologist Robert Warwick who is retained by the college to investigate the crime. As it also turns out young Bush was about to come into a large inheritance and that fact provides a whole load of suspects. The law which consists of a local sheriff and Barney Fife like deputy realize that they're out of their league investigating a homicide which turns into a string of homicides before the culprit is nabbed. They grouse a bit, but mostly follow Warwick's lead in the investigation. The lack of first class production values prevent me from giving A Shot In The Dark a higher rating. Still the film is not a bad one of its type.