The Case of the Black Parrot

...not great. The premise of a stolen antique is somewhat different for this low budget war-era mystery. Could have been better, but the leading man is too stiff and the murders come too late despite the fast pace. Worth it only to see some ingenious means of death by furniture and to learn why the name of the criminal is the Black Parrot.

Lacklustre whodunit from Warners. Plot concerns a valuable antique cabinet being brought back from France to US. The furniture item appears a mysterious piece of work that may or may not be a copy of the real thing. Reporter Moore (Lundigan) and ditzy photographer Tripod (Foy Jr.) get involved with the cabinet and an exotic someone calling himself The Black Parrot. Soon a series of mysterious deaths occur surrounding the furniture piece. Is the Parrot responsible and just who is he really.

It's a typical amateur sleuth programmer from that period. Unfortunately, the results are dimmer than most. Only the unknown method of killing registers as imaginative. Otherwise, the acting, visuals, and script are pedestrian, at best. Moreover, I don't recall a single scene not taking place on a set. It's a real cheapo for the otherwise respectable Warner Bros. I suspect the project was mainly to showcase pretty boy Lundigan-- who parades through his part-- in hopes of advancing his career. If so, I doubt that it worked for him any better than it does for the audience.

Wow, that William Lundigan was cute! Here he stars in 1941's The Case of the Black Parrot, directed by Noel M. Smith. This is a rare lead for Lundigan at Warners.

Lundigan is Jim Moore, on board ship returning from Europe. He's met a young woman, Sandy Vantine (Maris Wrixon) traveling with her uncle, and they've fallen in love.

The Vantines are bringing home an antique cabinet, supposedly forged by the Black Parrot, an expert forger. An inspector, Colonel Piggott (Paul Cavanagh) is also aboard and after the Black Parrot. The cabinet appears to be the real thing, not a forgery. And it appears the Parrot is after it.

Back home, Jim has proposed to Sandy and meets her family and friends. They discover a maid, Julia, is trying to find love letters in the cabinet written by her boss, Madame de Charierre, to whom the cabinet actually belongs. Then Sandy's uncle and another guest are killed. Jim contacts Colonel Piggott. Everyone is a suspect.

There is a second compartment in the cabinet that holds diamonds. Obviously someone is after them - perhaps the Parrot himself.

It won't take anyone long to figure this one out.

Nothing special about it, and for me a little confusing as my concentration wandered.

This Warner B mystery begins aboard ship. Paul Vantine is shipping back to America a forged version of the Boule Cabinet. The Boule is a Louis XIV style antique housed in Paris. He's an admirer of the forger known as the Black Parrot. With him is his niece (Maris Wrixon) and her new beau (William Lundigan). Inspecting the cabinet in his stateroom, Vantine is outraged to find that he has the original Boule, as he is so intent of having the Black Parrot copy. During a faked alarm call when all passengers have to report to the ship's lifeboats, the stateroom gets broken into and the cabinet opened. Somebody is after something the cabinet secretly contains. Later there are murders and various people have an interest in the Boule. I think vintage mystery fans will like this one.

In the 1930s and 40s, Hollywood made hundreds, if not thousands of cheap B-mystery movies. Most have a certain sameness about them--and "The Case of the Black Parrot" is no exception. What do they have in common? Well, usually the police are pretty dim and it takes a non-professional (often a newspaper man or woman) to solve some murders. They also usually have the most convoluted plots and schemes. Because this film is so typical, I cannot highly recommend it...but it's not terrible.

The case involves a piece of furniture being shipped from France to the Unites States. But later, folks involves with it start dying...with marks much like snake fangs on the back of the hand of the victims. So, it's up to (naturally) a bright newspaper man (William Lundigan) to put the clues together and capture the baddie...though the baddie pretty much just turns himself in at the end. Few real surprises and, of course, a fantastical sort of way of killing people.