L'espresso blu

By Whose Hand? (1932)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Enjoyable mystery from Columbia, which was once thought lost until being discovered back in 1998 (so I've read). A playboy detective (Ben Lyon) with the lust for women cracks the story of a serial killer who has escaped from prison. While following a lead he ends up on a train where a wide range of suspicious character lure including a murderer. The actual mystery of this film is pretty good but there are way too many attempts at comedy. Some of it works like the drunk who keeps following the detective around but some falls flat on its face. Lyon is decent in the lead but he's never really able to pull off all the charming, lead male stuff. Tom Dugan steal the show as the drunk and Dwight Frye has a small role as a mother loving bad guy. When I say mother loving I really mean it as there's an extremely bizarre scene at the start of the film where he's holding his mother as you'd expect to see someone hold their lover. Then he plants a big, hard kiss on her lips! Directed by Benjamin Stoloff who would direct Bela Lugosi the following year in Night of Terror.