The Caribbean Mystery

This is the third version Fox made of John W. Vandercook's 'Murder in Trinidad' story. It stars James Dunn as a Brooklyn private eye called in to investigate the disappearance of treasure-hunting mineralogists on the island. There is an opening scene showing two of the treasure hunters being guided to a swamp which they believe holds pirate's treasure in it's depths. Two shots are heard offscreen so we suspect they are being murdered to keep them from searching the swamp. The action moves to a seedy hotel in San Juan where another murder takes place shortly after Smith arrives there. His investigation of this most-recent murder is made difficult because the murderer probably used a balcony that can be accessed from another 24 rooms in the hotel. An antique pirate's dagger is displayed on the wall of the bespectacled Colonel Lane's office where Smith had to report to at the start of his investigation. Smith takes a dislike to the sight of the dagger before the same or similar weapon is thrown towards him in a room he has been asked to visit at midnight. Smith is described as an oaf and a louse from Brooklyn in a role written specifically for James Dunn. It seems that Fox had Reed Hadley originally in mind for the lead role in this but he had to make do as one of the suspects after the script had been rewritten. I've seen the Mr Moto version of the story and I would really like to see if the Nigel Bruce 1934 turns up for me to complete my viewing of the three Fox versions.

James Dunn stars in The Caribbean Mystery playing a private detective from Brooklyn on a case. in the island tropics. Several folks have come down to this island paradise have disappeared usually after going in to a nasty samp.

Given the date I thought this might have something to do with the war. But it is only treasure hunters who are making sure no one gets the pirate loot they've uncovered..

The mystery here is who is the inside man they have in the territorial governor's office. But it's revealed soon enough before the climax.

Dunn who was off the Oscar he won for A Tree Grows In Brooklyn didn't get a real good comeback bounce from the Oscar. He was in mostly routine action films like this. At Fox he was doing leads in the early 30s and co-starred with Shirley Temple in some films.

Not a bad film from 20th Century Fox's B picture unit, but strictly routine.

Three men are wandering around in a swamp -- in the novel this is based on, it's Trinidad, even though the island is not named in the movie -- and come across an inhabited rise that no one knows of. They are killed. Some months later, the local police chief is complaining to the island's governor that the missing men obviously drowned in the swamp, but the oil company they worked for insisted on sending a private investigator. That man turns out to be James Dunn in this dull and telegraphed mystery movie

Dunn had been a star of Fox Films in the 1930s, a song-and-dance man teamed with Sally Eilers. His films, aside from three that made Shirley Temple a star, disappointed at the box office, and his tenure at Fox ended when the company merged with Zanuck's 20th Century Productions. He retreated to Poverty Row, but in 1945 Elia Kazan cast him in A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN. It resulted in an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, this B movie, and then it was back to Poverty Row and the occasional small role in A pictures. He died in 1967 at age 65.

The setting is a remote Caribbean island. Governor McCracken (Roy Gordon) hires a famous American detective to find out why a number of an oil company explorers have gone missing. The head of policing, Colonel Lane (William Forrest), believes there is an uninhabitable area and the missing men were merely lost in the quick sand. The detective, Smith (James Dunn), arrives and he suggests the bullet hole in his hat means there is a real mystery here.

Smith's partner is murdered and now even Colonel Lane is willing to believe they have a mystery on their hands. Smith believes that someone in power on the island is behind it all. So he places his trust in McCracken's son (Edward Ryan), and the two probe the inner uninhabitable area of the island. They uncover a vast production company, that is searching the swamps for gold doubloons buried by pirates many years ago. They also come across a scattering of corpses which suggests the men excavating the swamp with do anything to keep the production secret.

Smith and McCracken's son are captured. Can the wily detective outwit his captors? Can Smith learn the mastermind behind it all? It's all pulled off in a very pleasing way. The sets are rather weak but the actors and the plot are pleasing. The film really benefits from Dunn's performance as the seemingly dopey but ultimate wise Brooklyn sleuth. A minor disappointment was the finale, where the mastermind is revealed. Ultimately a fun hour at the movies.