From Headquarters

There are two cases being investigated here. One is a safe cracking case, and the other the murder of a wealthy playboy that was initially thought to be suicide. These two cases coincide.

In the first case the suspects are narrowed down by entering criteria into what passed for a primitive computer - without semiconductors. The murder case is more complex. The police start with the playboy's fiancee, Lou Winton (Margaret Lindsay), and there just get to be more and more suspects from there. The complicating factor is that Lou was homicide detective Stevens' (George Brent's) girlfriend before she was the playboy's fiancee.

Fingerprint technology, ballistics, autopsies, and blood testing are all mentioned. And like any WB film of the era there is an interesting cast of supporting characters running around - Hugh Herbert as an overenthusiastic bail bondsman, Ken Murray as an obnoxious crime reporter, Edward Ellis as a medical examiner who loves his work, and Dorothy Burgess as a crazy woman - she did that kind of role so well.

Eugene Pallette is in one of his less cuddly roles as Sgt. Boggs who seems to want arrest everybody for the murder. And you get to see something I don't think I've seen before in a 30s film - the police switchboard employs entirely male operators. At a little more than an hour it doesn't wear out its welcome, and I recommend it.

As a mystery, From Headquarters isn't very challenging, but it might hold your interest as a behind-the-scenes glimpse of police procedure. The film is at its best when showing the details of a typical murder investigation, including two scenes that prove how little ballistic testing has changed in more than five decades. Another plus is the photography, which generally rises above other programmers of its ilk. [In one set-up, the camera establishes a shot of an autopsy in progress and then takes the vantage of the corpse looking up at the doctors.] There is also a pre-code reference to drug addiction, personified by a murder suspect (Dorothy Burgess) who is a riot of facial ticks, jitters and hysterical laughter. The cast is competant, if largely uninspired, with leads Brent and Lindsay their usual drab selves. Some of the supporting players--Hobart Cavanaugh's non-comic safe cracker, Hugh Herbert's pesky bail bondsman, Edward Ellis's enthusiastic forensics man and Robert Barrat's eccentric rug importer--are decidedly better. Not one of director Dieterle's best, but an interesting curio all the same.

In the 1930s, detective and crime stories were a dime a dozen. Very few of them were about realism but about entertaining the audiences. Because of this, there were a lot of clichés you could expect in a film about murder....such as the cops being idiots, the bad guy confessing to everything at the end of the film even though the good guys could not prove they did it and police procedures were practically non-existent...they just kept arresting the wrong people until they got the right one!! The films don't age well because of all this and there is a serious sameness to them. Fortunately, among these many cliché-ridden stories is one like "From Headquarters"!

The film begins with a murder. Non-stupid detectives begin investigating and you follow the case from start to finish. You see them taking fingerprints, searching files and early computer systems and questioning various witnesses. While the guy played by Eugene Palette is a bit like the dopey detectives (in fact, this same actor played dopey detectives in several films), he's not over the top and is competent. His boss (George Brent) is quite competent and clever...like you'd hope a detective would be.

The bottom line is that this film is extremely well written, has much better than usual acting and has aged very well. The actors seem more realistic and less like archetypes in this one. Plus, it is fascinating seeing how thing have and haven't changed over the last 80 or so years. Well worth seeing.

I'm betting that George Brent got the lead in From Headquarters because Pat O'Brien had not arrived at Warner Brothers. O'Brien was cast in the lead in the very similar Bureau of Missing Persons and he fit the part of a detective so much better.

Still and all Brent does all right with the part as one of two detectives assigned to the murder of a well known man about town. Only this particular man was seeing Brent's former flame Margaret Lindsay and she's a suspect.

Brent and Lindsay get good support from Eugene Palette who is carrying over his Sergeant Heath character from Philo Vance and Henry O'Neill as the chief inspector.

Two characterizations that should be noted are Robert Barrat as a rather sophisticated, but inpatient suspect who does in his own alibi and Hobart Cavanaugh as a safecracker who really manages to get himself murdered at police headquarters.

One guy I don't think belonged was Hugh Herbert who brought his 'woo woo' act into a serious film as a wacky bail bondsman. I guess someone at Warner Brothers thought he'd be good comic relief, but not here. Also Dorothy Burgess as another murder suspect was way over the top.

Look fast and you'll see Frank McHugh right at the beginning of the film as one of a group of prisoners being brought into the station in a paddy wagon. He gets a line to speak and his voice is unmistakable.

From Headquarters is a not bad B picture that played well on a double bill with their more well known gangster stars.

FROM HEADQUARTERS (1933) is a very interesting movie about a police investigation into a murder. The action takes place entirely within police headquarters, as cops interview suspects and scientists analyze evidence.

The movie is short and sweet (just over one hour long), filled with an entertaining cast of characters (ranging from policemen to news reporters to bail bondsmen), and quite enjoyable. It offers a fascinating look into the cutting-edge forensics of the day (how science was used to solve crimes). The movie shows how fingerprints are obtained and matched up. It mentions blood testing and autopsies. And there's a neat look at ballistic analysis (comparing marks on fired bullets).

George Brent, Eugene Palette, and Henry O'Neill play the police investigating a murder case. They parade in a string of the dead man's associates and each offers their piece to the puzzle of what turns out to be a very eventful night for the deceased. Each successive suspect's story is shown in a short point-of-view flashback, picking up where the last witness left off. The "whodunit" aspect is a little convoluted, but as the day goes on, developments in the lab shed new light on the case.

Edward Ellis (THE THIN MAN) plays the lead scientist, who relishes each breakthrough in the "lovely murder". It seems like Warner Bros. wanted to show theatergoers some of the cool new forensic strategies and technologies, and even though science has come a long way since 1933, it's still an interesting look back in history.

FROM HEADQUARTERS is not a top-shelf murder mystery or police procedural, but it's quick and fun, with some racy pre-Code material, a lighthearted sense of the macabre, and a unique historical value.

Directed by William Dieterle (THE STORY OF LOUIS PASTEUR - 1936, THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME - 1939) and also featuring Hugh Herbert, Robert Barrat, and the lovely Margaret Lindsay.

6+/10