classicsoncall Review of Green Eyes

Green Eyes (1934)

"There's gonna be another murder around here pretty soon, and I have a good suspicion I'm gonna be the victim."

[5/10 · 16 April 2020]

As far as murder mystery films of the era go, this one is about average. A myriad of suspects, a couple of red herrings, and an intrusive bystander manages to investigate the crime while the detective in charge runs around barking questions in order to intimidate a confession out of someone, anyone. There's an odd flashback scene that transitions like it's merely a change of scene in the present, and the only way you become aware of it is because the murder victim that opens the story is alive and chiding his granddaughter for her lavish way of spending his money, thereby making her a prime suspect when the live action returns. Charles Starrett is one of my favorite movie cowboys of the Forties and Fifties, and he's top billed here as the mystery novelist who takes a keen interest in the murder and goes about searching clues while the cops are largely ineffective. The basis for the murder involves money and some old mining stock, and our man Michael Tracy (Starrett) gets to the bottom of things in the slightly more than sixty minutes it takes for these programmers to reach a conclusion. If you're searching for a connection to the title, I can only surmise it had to do with those two shiny marbles on the nightstand just before the picture closes. If the movie had been in color, they might have been green.