The Death Kiss (1932)

The Age of Commercialism

That was an excellent one.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

THE DEATH KISS is an acceptable murder mystery from the early days of sound cinema. The whole movie takes place on a movie set, which makes for quite a fun and atypical viewing experience, and the opening sequence is a cracker: a character is murdered by a mystery assassin in film, only for the cast to discover that the actor has been killed for real. Which of them did it? This film has a short running time like many of its ilk, which means that it runs through the various police procedural bits at speed. The comic relief is quite laboured but I enjoyed it, especially the efforts of the bumbling security guard. Horror fans will enjoy seeing Bela Lugosi in support, as he's given something a little different to do here, and there's even a role for Edward Van Sloan, teaming up with Lugosi again after Dracula. THE DEATH KISS isn't an amazing film or anything, but it's an effective time-waster and I particularly enjoyed the reveal at the climax.

While filming the closing scene of "The Death Kiss", leading man Myles Brent is actually killed. Having played around with, or been married to, most of the women connected with the movie studio, there are lots of suspects. When leading lady Marcia Lane is arrested for the killing, her suiter, a studio writer, starts to investigate the killing in order to prove her innocence. The 30's and early 40s had a slew of these kind of dark mysterious drawing room dramas made in Hollywood. Many shorts in this genre were made as well. Not sure why. The genre is still popular in theatre of in the UK so maybe that's where it started.Anyway, this is not a half bad movie. It's a bit slow, but they all are and for a poverty row flick it's quite watchable. Three of the actors from Dracula are re-united. Guess their careers took a quick down turn after Dracula.

David Manners, Edward Van Sloan, and Bela Lugosi all from the cast of Dracula and the first two from the cast of The Mummy reunite for this film from Tiffany Studios The Death Kiss. They are in order a screenwriter, a director, and a studio manager and there's been a murder of one of their stars on a set.Quite a spectacular killing it was too. The studio's leading star is killed with a real bullet while they're shooting gangland style hit on the sound stage. Suspicion points to Adrienne Ames the leading lady who also happens to be the former wife of the deceased.There's yet another murder done by someone who discovers the original killer. Manners who does write mystery type screenplays as his living does his own investigation and does a great job of constantly showing up the real police detective John Wray. Manners has an ulterior motive, he kind of likes Ames himself. For a kind of authority Manners makes as his sidekick the studio rent a cop, Vince Barnett who provides a few laughs with his fumbling character. But with Manners they do get the last laugh on the cops.As for the killer the motive is the oldest one there is, jealousy as the deceased had his share of groupies, some of them married to other folks.The Death Kiss besides being the title of this film is also the title of the film being shot when the homicide takes place. This is not a bad film though the casting does give away who the killer is.

One of the most novel aspects of this low-budget murder-mystery is the opening sequence. It starts with a man being shot near the front entrance of a building before the camera pans around to reveal it's simply a scene being shot in a movie studio. I've seen this same set-up numerous times in other mysteries, thrillers and horror films and don't recall seeing any films predating this one using this film-within-a-film trick at the beginning. But what is supposed to be a simulated murder turns out to be a real one when a member of the cast or crew actually does shoot the actor from somewhere off-screen. The question is, who did it and why? That's what Lt. Sheehan (John Wray) hopes to find out. Usually beating him to the punch though is studio writer Franklyn Drew (David Manners), who decides to play amateur sleuth when the killer tries to implicate his girlfriend - film star Marcia Lane (Adrienne Ames) - in not only the first murder, but also a second one involving a drunk getting battery acid snuck into his liquor.Horror fans will note that three of the leads from Tod Browning's classic Dracula, made just one year earlier, round out the cast, including Manners in the lead role and Bela Lugosi (playing studio president Joseph Steiner) and Edward Van Sloan (playing director Tom Avery) in supporting roles, both as just a couple of the potential suspects. It's also nice to get a look at a 1930s film studio, including sets and camera and sound equipment. The screenplay depends a bit too much on coincidence, with Manners finding many clumsily-left clues just lying around at various locations and the killer conveniently popping in long enough to conk someone over the head so he/she can destroy evidence, for the mystery aspects to be fully satisfactory. And the comedy elements, primarily the ones involving a dim-witted set security guard (Vince Barnett) are a bit strained at times. Despite that, the film is still pretty entertaining and worth watching.