The Crimson Canary

1945's "The Crimson Canary" was a Universal mystery with a twist, the main suspects are jazz musicians, allowing for about 20 minutes of music to detract from the investigation. Noah Beery Jr. heads the cast as the trumpet playing bandleader, who discovers the body of their flirtatious singer (Claudia Drake), dead from a fractured skull, in the same back room as her unconscious fiancée, the group's drummer. With a young Mel Torme dubbing the drums, the music holds more intrigue than the whodunit angle (the killer's identity is hardly a surprise), but John Litel steals it as the detective with a fine ear. This film aired twice on Pittsburgh's CHILLER THEATER, although it was never included in Universal's popular SHOCK! package of classic horror films first issued to television in the late 50's, which still featured a number of non horror titles. Also shown on CHILLER THEATER was another whodunit with music, 1944's "Murder in the Blue Room" (also with John Litel), but at least that one featured an actual ghost, albeit a comic one. Other non SHOCK! Universals to air on CHILLER THEATER included 1934's "The Crosby Case," "The Man Who Reclaimed His Head," and "Rendezvous at Midnight," 1938's "The Black Doll," "The Crime of Doctor Hallet," and "The Missing Guest," 1939's "The House of Fear," 1940's "The Invisible Woman," 1941's "The Black Cat," 1942's "Invisible Agent," and 1944's "Jungle Woman."

...because there just isn't that much story here. A vocalist in a small dive of a club is flirting with all of the five members of a jazz band, trying to get her hooks into one. Why I don't know. It's not like she is Yoko Ono and these guys are the Beatles. They are impoverished musicians on the way up - maybe- living out of a suitcase. The beginning shows Danny (Noah Beery, Jr.) telling the vocalist, Anita (Claudia Drake), to leave Johnny alone - he's promised to marry her and Danny says he'll kill her if she doesn't back off.

Then after the next number Anita's bludgeoned body is found in the back room by the quintet. Johnny blacked out during the time of the murder so he doesn't know if he did it. Danny is the leader of the band, and says that, before anybody else discovers the body, they should just all pack up and leave as though they never saw anything, and go to their next gig. So that is what they do, except the police are waiting. So they split up waiting for the heat to be off. But the heat is never off when it comes to murder.

And so for the next thirty minutes you are mainly following Danny around as he is always looking over his shoulder for the police. Danny turns out to be engaged to a girl with an inquiring mind who goes looking for the real perpetrator. In this interim period that really has no surprises there is a great jazz performance by Coleman Hawkes.

The end finds the jazz quintet right back at Vic's club, the scene of the crime, where detective Quinn (John Litel) is waiting for them. Now how Quinn got this job is crazy. The commissioner thought he would be good at it because he likes jazz? Crazy man, crazy.

The ending is not that big of a surprise because of the claustrophobic scene of the crime and therefore limited number of suspects, but for what The Crimson Canary lacks in plot it makes up in atmosphere and some great jazz. Just realize that this film is more hep cat than Hitchcock and you should enjoy it.

I saw this movie for the first time today and while the plot had next to nothing in it and the jazz was lots of fun to hear, there was one thing that lit me up. While I haven't heard "One Meat Ball" played or sung for at least 70 to 75 years when I was still a pre-teen, when I heard Josh White's rendition of it today, I was able to sing about 90% of it along with him as if I sang it just yesterday so that the little man would still know for sure the waiter's words that "you got no bread with one meat ball." That in itself is worth two extra points in my rating.

Noah Beery Jr and his group are playing to great reception at Steve Geray's jazz club. Their next stop is San Francisco, and Geray says he'll call a friend in the area to give them a gig. But before they can vacate, they find the corpse of singer Claudia Drake. They argue a bit over what to do, and decide to split. When Geray finds the corpse, he notifies the police, and jazz-loving John Litel takes off after Beery and pals.

It's a very nice little mystery, with not only a goodly number of standard red herrings to distract the audience, but some good music, too. Coleman Hawkins shows up, and see if you can spot Mel Torme as a drummer. Best of all is Josh White playing the guitar and singing two songs in a row.... probably structured so he could be cut out of the movie at the Whites-only houses down South. John Hoffman may be better remembered as an editor than a director, but this is a nifty little B picture.

In the 1940's there were probably 5,000 B movies made that were no better or worse than this one with one big exception.This little film has a scene that contains five truly great jazz artists playing at close to their peak. I think it's now on youtube.

I saw it on a late show in Palo Alto California 42 years ago and in those days there were no tape machines.(it wouldn't have mattered since I was watching it in a motel.) Anyway, the jazz greats are Coleman Hawkins, Howard McGee,Sir Charles Thompson, Denzil Best, and most of all, Oscar Pettiford on the bass. For a young jazz bass player to be able to watch the great Pettiford in action would be worth something of value thats immeasurable. MOST IMPORTANTLY, the other comments are incorrect !! That is definitely Coleman Hawkins and Oscar Pettiford on the sound track. Believe me, I KNOW their playing. It's definitely THEM !! I'm shocked that people haven't heard that. p-s I had just finished playing a concert with the George Shearing Quintet in Concord California opposite Dave Brubeck and came back to the motel and this movie was on t.v. Talk about an unbelievable experience...by the way, I was able later to secure the film.