I am not an admirer of murder mysteries. I have read my quota. Mostly, it seems to me, they are either frustratingly contrived or, even more frustratingly, the author has dealt unfairly, withholding a vital clue. The detective springs it at the end. "Aha, Dr. Whipsnide! You are caught. I know about the secret codicil." Great. But the reader didn't know. Locked-door mysteries are among the most frustrating. Conan Doyle tried it. In "The Sign of Four" he left the lockout incomplete, door and windows sealed, but another means of egress available. In "The Speckled Band" we have to believe a trained snake would bite a sleeping person then slither away at the sound of a whistle. I have read only one locked-room story that remains flawless: "The Mystery of the Yellow Room." Gaston Leroux's homage to Sherlock Holmes. Clues are there. Logic is impeccable. Movie murder mysteries seldom achieve that. I make an exception for "The Verdict," logic and clues included. Its trick is to scatter so many red herrings that it keep us unsure.
Initially - I say this without condescension - it seems obvious. Of course. Sydney Greenstreet is the murderer. The title gives it away. The story revolves around the Verdict; that is, the overturned verdict. Inspector Grodman, humiliated by Inspector Buckley, seeks revenge. Immediately, there is another murder, designed to lure Inspector Buckley into a false arrest. Obvious. But the film continually sows doubt. Perhaps it is too obvious. Has someone set out to trap ex-Inspector Grodman? Peter Lorre's Victor Emmric acts suspiciously (who could do it better than Peter Lorre?), shady and ambiguous. He lacks a motive. That, of course, could be the withheld clue. Joan Lorring's dance-hall girl Lottie is not clever enough to have pulled it off. But she has a suspiciously close relationship with the clever Victor. The last red herring cemented my uncertainty. An innocent man sits on death row. Grodman makes an apparently sincere effort to save him. He goes off to find Lady Frieda, the missing alibi witness. Perhaps he is sincere after all. He's not the murderer. Or is this the culmination of his murderous plot? Now, just as a guiltless man is hanged, he plans to spring the exculpatory witness to humiliate the rival who had humiliated him. He finds Lady Frieda. We see him introduced alone into her residence. He returns. Lady Frieda is dead. What? Did he kill her, poison perhaps? She would inevitably have finished her vacation and provided the alibi. The investigation would reopen, with potentially fatal results for Mr. Grodman. Which is it, sincerity or deviltry? Sydney Greenstreet remains opaque. We cannot tell. None of the possibilities breaks the chain of logic. Inspector Buckley, moreover, is no fool. His solution to the locked-door puzzle is perfectly plausible. The final solution borrows, though the timing is reversed, from "The Mystery of the Yellow Room." There is one possible flaw. But it is not insurmountable. Grodman breaks down the door. Mrs. Benson runs to get a cop. The police will have arrived to find a freshly-killed corpse, the blood uncongealed, perhaps still bleeding, and Grodman alone with the body. Still, one could allow that the murder had occurred and the murderer escaped, however he did, just before Grodman's arrival. Two of Jack the Ripper's victims were discovered within minutes of being killed. In once case Jack may have been there still, mingling in the crowd that gathered. Another victim he killed in daylight, with people waking up all around.
Don Siegel in his debut directs the story straightforwardly, which is essential in a murder mystery. No need even to mention Lorre and Greenstreet. At this point they knew each other's moves and style to perfection; they mesh seamlessly. The other actors ably support them. Rosalind Ivan does a sort of Una O'Connor role, flighty and panicky. She and Joan Lorring must have enjoyed a reunion, having played mother and daughter opposite Bette Davis in "The Corn is Green." Then there's Morton Lowry. Just seeing his name in the credits, you know he will become either the murderer or the murderer's victim. For such a fairly handsome actor, he seldom played pleasant parts: the sadistic school teacher in John Ford's "How Green Was My Valley," Hurd Hatfield's dissolute acolyte, sunk in an abyss of absinthe in "The Portrait of Dorian Gray," Stapleton the murderer, manipulator of the hell-hound unmasked by Basil Rathbone in "The Hound of the Baskervilles." Joan Lorring stands out. She was a tremendously talented actress. Why didn't she become a star? She almost won an Oscar for "The Corn is Green." She's one of those actresses, like Luise Rainer, who could truly have said, "Hollywood didn't know what to do with me." Maybe it's because she was schooled in radio, taught to be subtle, like fellow misfits Agnes Moorehead, Mercedes McCambridge, Everett Sloane or, in this movie, George Coulouris. She turned to the stage and had brilliant success. (In "Three Strangers" she plays a love scene with Peter Lorre. I cannot think of another actress who got to do that. For the only time in movie history Lorre gets the girl; she's the girl.) If you must see a murder mystery film, see this one.
Initially - I say this without condescension - it seems obvious. Of course. Sydney Greenstreet is the murderer. The title gives it away. The story revolves around the Verdict; that is, the overturned verdict. Inspector Grodman, humiliated by Inspector Buckley, seeks revenge. Immediately, there is another murder, designed to lure Inspector Buckley into a false arrest. Obvious. But the film continually sows doubt. Perhaps it is too obvious. Has someone set out to trap ex-Inspector Grodman? Peter Lorre's Victor Emmric acts suspiciously (who could do it better than Peter Lorre?), shady and ambiguous. He lacks a motive. That, of course, could be the withheld clue. Joan Lorring's dance-hall girl Lottie is not clever enough to have pulled it off. But she has a suspiciously close relationship with the clever Victor. The last red herring cemented my uncertainty. An innocent man sits on death row. Grodman makes an apparently sincere effort to save him. He goes off to find Lady Frieda, the missing alibi witness. Perhaps he is sincere after all. He's not the murderer. Or is this the culmination of his murderous plot? Now, just as a guiltless man is hanged, he plans to spring the exculpatory witness to humiliate the rival who had humiliated him. He finds Lady Frieda. We see him introduced alone into her residence. He returns. Lady Frieda is dead. What? Did he kill her, poison perhaps? She would inevitably have finished her vacation and provided the alibi. The investigation would reopen, with potentially fatal results for Mr. Grodman. Which is it, sincerity or deviltry? Sydney Greenstreet remains opaque. We cannot tell. None of the possibilities breaks the chain of logic. Inspector Buckley, moreover, is no fool. His solution to the locked-door puzzle is perfectly plausible. The final solution borrows, though the timing is reversed, from "The Mystery of the Yellow Room." There is one possible flaw. But it is not insurmountable. Grodman breaks down the door. Mrs. Benson runs to get a cop. The police will have arrived to find a freshly-killed corpse, the blood uncongealed, perhaps still bleeding, and Grodman alone with the body. Still, one could allow that the murder had occurred and the murderer escaped, however he did, just before Grodman's arrival. Two of Jack the Ripper's victims were discovered within minutes of being killed. In once case Jack may have been there still, mingling in the crowd that gathered. Another victim he killed in daylight, with people waking up all around.
Don Siegel in his debut directs the story straightforwardly, which is essential in a murder mystery. No need even to mention Lorre and Greenstreet. At this point they knew each other's moves and style to perfection; they mesh seamlessly. The other actors ably support them. Rosalind Ivan does a sort of Una O'Connor role, flighty and panicky. She and Joan Lorring must have enjoyed a reunion, having played mother and daughter opposite Bette Davis in "The Corn is Green." Then there's Morton Lowry. Just seeing his name in the credits, you know he will become either the murderer or the murderer's victim. For such a fairly handsome actor, he seldom played pleasant parts: the sadistic school teacher in John Ford's "How Green Was My Valley," Hurd Hatfield's dissolute acolyte, sunk in an abyss of absinthe in "The Portrait of Dorian Gray," Stapleton the murderer, manipulator of the hell-hound unmasked by Basil Rathbone in "The Hound of the Baskervilles." Joan Lorring stands out. She was a tremendously talented actress. Why didn't she become a star? She almost won an Oscar for "The Corn is Green." She's one of those actresses, like Luise Rainer, who could truly have said, "Hollywood didn't know what to do with me." Maybe it's because she was schooled in radio, taught to be subtle, like fellow misfits Agnes Moorehead, Mercedes McCambridge, Everett Sloane or, in this movie, George Coulouris. She turned to the stage and had brilliant success. (In "Three Strangers" she plays a love scene with Peter Lorre. I cannot think of another actress who got to do that. For the only time in movie history Lorre gets the girl; she's the girl.) If you must see a murder mystery film, see this one.