Curtain at Eight (1933)

That was an excellent one.

It is a performances centric movie

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Almost half of the movie shows a womanizing actor's life of apparently enviable debauchery; several scenes are offered to a chimpanzee's naughtiness and mischief, to old detective Jimmy's singing, etc., while the bare plot was hugely exciting, but squeezed to suit the whims mentioned, and a sort of obliqueness; since I mentioned squeezing, occasional humor is squeezed out of racial jokes, and of all stereotypes, there's a caricature of a Jewish manager, a tandem of cops (Jimmy and Marty), a reporter, but the older detective manages to take over his scenes, anyway the awkwardness, the looseness may be attributed to nonchalance, while the puzzle is given away from the 1st scene …. The murder mysteries, several, are obliquely referenced, which makes the storyline look awkward but enthralling.Once upon a time, movies, and movies like this one, meant a different thing, they were shows to enjoy, and none foresaw they might be, 83 yrs later, analyzed on a website; they were watched in a theater, and were mainly shows, like the TV episodes have been later, 15 yrs after this movie was released.Dorothy Mackaill plays Lola, her character is creepy, but the actress was classier than her colleagues (the tycoon's daughter was appealing only, while the wife was a vulgar shrew). It was her 12th year in the cinema, her 14th if we count the shorts and lost movies from her first couple of yrs. From '55 on (by then she was 52, and a thrice divorcée), Dorothy spent her next decades in Honolulu, for another 35 yrs.

Noted stage actor Wylie Thornton (Paul Cavanagh) has plenty of girlfriends, apparently. (Also a monkey friend who likes him a lot.) New co-star, old co-star, estranged wife—he doesn't seem to be playing any of them completely straight, and that's about all that we know for sure during the rather confusing opening portions of this classy if modest B mystery.Dorothy Mackaill is good as Lola, sister to Anice, one of Wylie's discarded romances; from our first meeting with Lola, we see she is angry with Wylie and frustrated in her attempts to make contact with him. Natalie Moorhead has only one full scene as Alma Thornton, the wife—but it's a goodie. Alma, too, is fed up with Wylie. She shows up in his room and answers the phone as his "secretary"; she mocks the way he speaks to his female phone callers ("Bye-ee!"); and she speaks to Wylie frankly and with a bite: "Your lips fairly brew honey when they want to. That's how you got me." (His reply: "I wish some of the same could get rid of you.") Doris Manning (Ruthelma Stevens) is Wylie's new co-star; she's a rich girl and neither her father nor her fiancé have any intention of allowing her to travel to New York with a married actor (of all things!) and will do whatever it takes to prevent her. –All in all, in the best murder mystery tradition, there is no shortage of characters who have it in for the cad, Wylie Thornton.Top-billed C. Aubrey Smith enters the picture around the midway point; he and Sam Hardy are a sort of smart cop/dumb cop pair. (Hardy does all the talking, Smith all the real detecting.) The chimp who lets himself in and out of his cage and has been known to swipe a handgun from the prop room is also a key player in this picture. A fair amount of comic relief keeps the action relatively light; the murder scene (on a stage darkened except for a candle-lighted birthday cake) is somewhat unique; and the plot's eventual resolution is a bit out of the ordinary, as well. Overall, although the exposition of the first half hour is a bit dense, once this story gets rolling it's a fast-paced show that's very easy to take.

This is going to stick in my head as the movie with the chimp and a gun. As for the rest of it I'm not too sure. The plot of the film has a cad of an actor going around romancing all the ladies. Several fall for his charms, including the chimp, unfortunately someone puts an end to his romancing when he's shot during a party in the theater for his birthday. Two detectives, an really annoying young one who jumps to conclusions and an older one who is slow and plodding get onto the case and try to figure out who shot the cad. Okay mystery takes a long while to get going, indeed it's almost half over before the murder occurs and then the film kind of runs around from pillar to post trying to unravel what happened. Actually the younger detective goes running around and shifts the tone from one of slowly unfolding drama/mystery to silly comedic mystery. While the soapy set up to the murder kind of threw me since I expected a different sort of film, I did fall into it and was rather enjoying myself until the Nimrod detective showed up. Personally I much preferred the older gentleman who managed to fit in to the pace of the proceedings and who's quiet demeanor hid a man who knows more than he says. I wish we had more time with him. Over all an okay film, worth a look see if you run across it, though I'd try to pair it with something else.

C. Aubrey Smith is first billed in the movie credits (although Dorothy Mackaill precedes him in the advertising posters) and does a fine job too. Admittedly, he looks much older than we would expect, but he carries his detective role role with all his customary assurance, even though he is sometimes forced to play second fiddle to Sam Hardy's aggressively loud-mouthed but dim-witted policeman. The support cast is full of interesting faces, not the least of which is an amazingly well-trained chimp! Good to see reliables like villainous Paul Cavanagh and Syd Saylor plus comic relief Herman Bing and ego-bruising Russell Hopton in prominent roles. The girls are rather stylish too. I love their costumes! Despite an obvious "B" budget, director E. Mason Hopper infuses a reasonable amount of mystery and suspense into the movie's 61 minutes.