Murder by Rope

The first 12 pithy minutes suffice to set in motion the aftershocks of the death penalty pronounced on London's infamous Laughing Murderer. Cue montage of newspaper display boards. After a tense moment in the jury room, when "guilty but insane" is momentarily contemplated, there's a bit of harrumphing procedural at Scotland Yard, complete with tweeds and pipe.

Long-lived character actor Wilfrid Hyde-White, young in 1936, plays a mystery writer who gets active at the country house of Mrs Mulcaire, a silly society hostess. The guests wear impeccable evening wear, the servants perfect livery. Everyone's a type, including the cadaverous butler and his cute hard-boiled side-kick maid.

The marvellous D. A. Clarke-Smith plays Hanson, the handwriting expert, with an elegance redolent of his 1888 birth year. Baffling subplots abound which won't be resolved to anyone's satisfaction, including a jewelry robbery, but who cares? A blackmailer is exposed and penniless young love triumphs.

The action is both theatrical and cinematically savvy, but shows just how far Hitchcock wrenched this stageworn material from its melodramatic source. Frankly, I love it as is.