Watch Miss Pinkerton For Free

People are voting emotionally.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Joan Blondell is nicknamed "Miss Pinkerton" in this 1932 film also starring George Brent and Ruth Hall. She's nicknamed Miss Pinkerton by Brent when she attempts to help solve a murder. She's actually Nurse Adams, bored with her hospital job. She's offered a chance to take care of an elderly lady who has gone into shock after finding someone dead in her house from an apparent suicide. Nurse Adams is supposed to keep an eye on things. She's thrilled.Miss Pinkerton doesn't believe the suicide - she thinks it was murder. The house gives her plenty of ammunition to believe it. It's an old, dark with a mean-looking maid, a scary butler, the frightened patient, and the doctor who doesn't seem too stable either.A young girl shows up (Hall). She was married to the murder victim but in love with someone else. This someone is Elliot (Donald Dillaway) who has been caught sneaking around the house. There is also a stenographer (Mary Doran). Then there is a second murder.George Brent is the investigating detective, and he's young and unmustached here. Normally he played opposite a major leading lady. He's charming here.Fast-moving mystery with the delightful Blondell keeping things lively. Some interesting camera work, including a gigantic shadow of a man over the house. Lots of screaming, too, as befits this kind of movie.

Most of the action takes place in an old, Victorian style mansion which art director Jack Okey excels in recreating here. In fact, his sets are one of the film's major assets. Yet another plus is the extraordinary direction by Lloyd Bacon. In fact, all the scenes in which Elizabeth Patterson appears are handled in a most unusual – at least for Lloyd Bacon – manner, using tilted camera angles, mirror shots, close close-ups and weird lighting effects. Indeed the most stunning effect of all occurs right at the character's death. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie is handled in a far less dramatic manner. Another minus is that there is no music score to help the mood. This lack also forces viewers to focus on the dialogue which seems a trifle stagey and is certainly overplayed by some of the actors, particularly John Wray. Fortunately, sound effects and McGill's fine photography help cover up some of the worst lapses.

Nurse Joan Blondell is bored with the humdrum goings-on at the hospital where she works. So when offered a little excitement by helping the police with a murder investigation, she jumps at the chance. Pleasant old dark house mystery with a little bit of comedy added to the mix. Joan's wonderful, as she always was in the '30s. Pretty, funny, immensely likable. Very fetching in that nurse uniform. She's one of the most underrated stars of her era. She's got nice support here from George Brent in an early role and many fine character actors like Holmes Herbert and C. Henry Gordon. Also Elizabeth Patterson (Miss Trumbull from I Love Lucy) plays the old lady Blondell is assigned to take care of. Well-directed by Lloyd Bacon with some nicely-framed shots and some spooky use of wind and shadows. The film ends in such a way one might think this was the first of a series. Unfortunately, that's not the case and there were no sequels.

By the time MISS PINKERTON was made, Hollywood was starting to repeat themselves in their treatments of Mary Roberts Rinehart (first purveyor of the "little old lady detective" that Agatha Christie would perfect with her Miss Marple and Angela Lansbury would do to a fare thee well in her Jessica Fletcher character) and the stage based sets for their "old dark house" mysteries. From the very first shots of MISS PINKERTON, with long shadows cast on the facade of the house in question where murder is to be done (and done again?), we're back in the territory of THE BAT (aka The Spiral Staircase), Ms. Rinehart's most successful stage and film excursion.As before, we have Ms. Rinehart's feisty "little old lady," Elizabeth Patterson as Juliet Mitchell, accompanied by a comic companion (in this case Nurse Adams played by Joan Blondell) and a host of potential suspects in her mysterious (and enormous) old house, but as film making technique has progressed in only a few years of sound (and Ms. Rinehart knew when to vary a successful template), this time we have a fun twist in casting the young comedienne as the lead and assistant to the fresh faced detective (George Brent as Inspector Patten on his "first case"), and the old lady as one of the potential suspects, thought to pass off a suicide as murder for the insurance money . . . or was it murder after all?Blondell is at her youthful best, and the studio cast is crammed full of first class talent on their way up from C. Henry Gordon as Dr. Stuart to the briefest of shots of a young Walter Brennan as a Police Dispatcher at the beginning.Modern action buffs may sniff that the atmospheric tale seems at times to be more about the enormous, detailed sets than the mystery itself, with unidentified characters sneaking in and up long back staircases, women screaming and the odd comic set piece (is the dog a clue?), but director Lloyd Bacon (the silent film actor turned director who had shepherded Cole Porter's 50 MILLION FRENCHMAN to the screen the year before with members of the Broadway cast but without Porter's songs and would mount the classic 42ND STREET *with* songs the next year, continuing to work into the 1950's!) keeps the action spinning for the barely hour (six minutes over) running time.Bask in the details of life in the early depression era (before the details of life outside got too depressing) and have the good time this nicely layered film offers, seeing if you can keep the suspects and motivations straight even when murder is committed right in front of your eyes - and remember "it ain't over 'till it's over," and that isn't when it first appears!