The Firebird (1934) User Reviews

He had it comin'.

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 9 January 2020]

In "The Firebird", Ricardo Cortez plays Herman Brandt, a stage actor and complete cad who loves to use women in order to further his fortunes. Again and again, you see him treating these women like dirt...so it's no surprise when eventually he is found dead in his apartment...a murder victim. So, it's up to the local police inspector (C. Aubrey Smith) to determined who did it and why.

This film had a very nice cast. Cortez was good, as always, as a smooth and amoral cad. As for the rest, many are exceptional supporting actors (such as Smith, Anita Louise and Lionel Atwill) and they work together to make a very dandy picture. I especially liked the way the Inspector handled the case.

Much better than anticipated

[lshelhamer · 7/10 · 28 July 2010]

This Warner Bros. film starts off slowly as a romantic drama, but then becomes a fast paced murder mystery with an ending hard to predict. I was not especially put off by the stage origin of the screenplay, the inauthentic accents of a story supposedly set in Vienna, or the tenuous connection to the Firebird, either as myth or music. The performances of the principals were weak: Ricardo Cortez as the victim, Verree Teasdale (overacting), and Anita Louise (quite beautiful, but unconvincing). This is more than made up for by the supporting roles of Dorothy Tree as the sharp-tongued ex-wife of the victim and Lionel Atwill as the initially oblivious and later befuddled husband/father. Even C. Aubrey Smith, usually relegated to pipe smoking and pontificating, has a more substantial role in this film as the inspector who actually solves the crime.

What is with the younger generation?

[Jim Tritten · 5/10 · 3 March 2002]

It was not only in more recent times that parents asked themselves what was going on with the younger generation. In pre-War Vienna too -- parents forbade their children from listening to Stravinsky's "Firebird Suite." Anita Louise is the daughter to Verree Teasdale and Lionel Atwill. The story concerns who has been tempted by Ricardo Cortez, the actor living in the apartment below? Someone silences him forever -- they might have done so earlier and spiced up a very slow start. Some twists and turns towards the end can't save this otherwise forgettable social commentary masquerading as a mystery.

Vat? No Accents?

[jbacks3 · 6/10 · 9 January 2002]

You can tell that a lot of production money was thrown at THE FIREBIRD but for the life of me I can't tell why it's set in Germany. Ricardo Cortez (the corpse to be) plays a horndog actor with a shady past who lives in a high class apartment building. There's an angry ex-wife, an effeminate personal assistant that's in love with the corpse's Dachsund, and well heeled neighbors with a lovely daughter (Anita Louise) who fear for their reputation. C. Aubrey Smith, the 71-year old impeccable Englishman, plays the police inspector. Remember this is supposed to be set in 1934 Germany (what, no Nazis?). Except for the wiener dog, the apartment manager's pipe, beer swilling policeman and some German shop signs, you'd never know it. Not one stab at an accent between them. A standard whodunnit.

Secret Lover

[utgard14 · 6/10 · 10 January 2014]

Egotistical actor Herman Brandt (Ricardo Cortez) is murdered in his apartment one night. Suspicion falls on a member of the Pointer family that lives upstairs: John Pointer (Lionel Atwill) and wife Carola (Veree Teasdale), their daughter Marietta (Anita Louise), and the governess Josephine (Helen Trenholme).

My principal reason for seeing this was Lionel Atwill. I love his horror films but it's always nice to see him stretch his acting chops in other types of movies. He's very good in this. Veree Teasdale's acting is overly theatrical at times. Cortez was one of the greats at playing slimy and here he showcases that. Lovely Anita Louise is quite good, particularly in the film's final scenes. Dorothy Tree was great fun as Brandt's ex-wife who loathed him. Dependable vet C. Aubrey Smith is his usual affable self as the police inspector. A nice little B murder mystery from Warner Bros.

Verree melodramatic...

[MikeMagi · 6/10 · 16 January 2014]

Snap quiz! Who is Verree Teasdale? A character created by Oscar Wilde? A P.G. Wodehouse flapper? Nope! She was a grand dame of the New York stage who gravitated to Hollywood just as sound came in, had a a good run playing sophisticated older women and married Adolphe Menjou. In "The Firebird," she's the wife of a politician whose next door neighbor, an actor, keeps trying to lure her to his apartment for a midnight escapade. When the actor is murdered, Verree is number one on police inspector C. Aubrey Smith's list of potential suspects. As the actor, Ricardo Cortez appears to be understudying a role that would have gone to Cary Grant if this wasn't a Radio Picture and had a higher budget. As Verree's uptight husband, Lionel Atwill seems almost surprised to be without his more frequent companions -- monsters and vampires. As for "The Firebird," its a reference to "The Firebird Suite," that wildly immoral pop tune (honest, that's how it's described in one scene)that Verree's young daughter spins on her gramophone.

Only Murderers In This Building

[boblipton · 6/10 · 8 December 2023]

Womanizing matinee idol Ricardo Cortez is murdered in his apartment. Homicide detective C. Aubrey Smith soon limits his suspects to people in the building.

It's not a particularly difficult mystery to solve for the audience, so director William Dieterle fills it in with interesting performances. Lionel Atwill as a retired bureaucrat seems softer and feebler than in any other role; perhaps it is the mustache. Verree Teasdale, as his wife seems about twenty years older than her real-life 30, but she always seemed to play women a bit on the matronly side. Anita Louise, as their daughter, seems small and hesitant. And so forth, with a cast that includes Dorothy Tree, Hobart Cavanaugh, Etienne Giradot, and Skippy. Ernest Haller's photography seems a bit intermittently soft, as if there is some problem with the print, but that might have been a deliberate decision.

Vienna sausage at its wurst.

[F Gwynplaine MacIntyre · 4/10 · 18 June 2005]

This movie's title is almost entirely irrelevant. Ricardo Cortez portrays a suave musician in Vienna (memo to a previous IMDb reviewer: Vienna is not in Germany), who lures young maidens to his bachelor flat by offering to play Stravinsky's 'Firebird'. Of course, he's a cad with dozens of notches on his bedpost. Sooner or later, somebody is going to kill this guy. Sure enough, somebody does.

This is one of those murder mysteries that features a subjective camera shot from the viewpoint of the murderer, so that the victim looks the murderer right in the eyes but we don't know the murderer's identity. We see Cortez welcoming someone into his digs, and a woman's arm enters the frame ... so we know the killer is a woman. And she's white, too. Other than that, her identity is a mystery.

C. Aubrey Smith, more phlegmatic than usual, is the world-weary police inspector who's got to wade through the suspects. The prime suspect is Cortez's neighbour abovestairs, Verree Teasdale, whose lovely young daughter Anita Louise may have been ruined by Cortez. In this movie, Teasdale is married to Lionell Atwill, so she's got enough problems.

I'll give this movie some credit. The solution to whodunnit was a genuine surprise to me. Likewise, her motive (yes, the killer IS a woman) was something I didn't expect. Unfortunately, her motive isn't very plausible either. Also, this movie starts out as a whodunnit, but C. Aubrey Smith's sleuth spends much less time trying to solve the murder than he spends pontificating on the morals of the younger generation and such. This movie is based on a play, and it shows: there's lots of talk and very little action.

This movie was directed by William Dieterle, a brilliant craftsman who believed in astrology and numerology, and whose artistic decisions were often dictated by the horoscopes cast for him by his wife. She must have put her azimuth in the wrong house this time, because Dieterle's talents -- so amply demonstrated in many other films -- aren't much in evidence here. Several good actors try hard with weak material. I'll rate this movie just 4 out of 10.

Tepid melodrama from a stage play is typical of Warner's '30s product...

[Doylenf · 5/10 · 21 July 2010]

THE FIREBIRD is a very melodramatic story acted in ultra theatrical fashion by most of the cast, but especially VERREE TEASDALE as the concerned mother of ANITA LOUISE, both of whom are bothered by the attentions of a playboy actor (RICARDO CORTEZ) with designs on both of them.

LIONEL ATWILL is Teasdale's husband, who comes to believe that his wife is responsible for Cortez's death--until the case is thoroughly examined by C. AUBREY SMITH as Detective Miller.

The slight story gets routine treatment as directed by William Dieterle, and today's audiences will immediately note the overly theatrical acting by Miss Teasdale as the chief suspect.

The revelation at the end comes as a surprise with almost no preparation, but by that time many viewers will have lost interest in the slow-moving story even though it's told in a brief running time of little more than an hour.

Very pleasant surprise

[TomInSanFrancisco · 8/10 · 16 July 2009]

I had never heard of this movie, and had never seen Verree Teasdale given top billing in a film, so I tuned in for the novelty value.

It turned out to be a very pleasant surprise -- a fast-paced story, imaginatively presented.

The cast is full of faces familiar to any '30s movie fan -- C. Aubrey Smith, Ricardo Cortez (he of the dazzling smile), Anita Louise.

There's even a wire-haired terrier that looks like the dog who played Asta (I don't know the canine actor's name!)

So I recommend this as a little-known but certainly worth-seeing gem, and a great reason for keeping your TCM subscription up to date.

Melodramatic trash wrapped up in a pretty package.

[mark.waltz · 2/10 · 16 January 2021]

This would be okay as a typical 30's women's picture had their been better continuity and less information left out which perplexes the audience. It is the story of a glamorous matron (Verree Teasdale) cool finds herself involved in murder through the advances made at her through the lecherous actor Ricardo Cortez. She feins shock upon learning he was murdered but then tells inspector C. Aubrey Smith that she had been seeing him on the sly, a complete lie because the audience had been lead to believe that she loathed him.

She's the wife of a retired diplomat (Lionel Atwill) and the mother of the young Anita Louise who is fascinated by a notorious piece of music called "The Firebird" which her mother considers immoral although it doesn't sound any different than many classical pieces. There's also Cortez's bothersome ex-wife, Dorothy Tree, an annoyed neighbor (Etienne Girardot), a slew of female servants and the theater staff of the play he's in, tired of putting up with his nonsense.

While this starts off fine, after a while, it becomes so ridiculously convoluted that you begin to roll your eyes with each lie that comes out of Teasdale's mouth, so far out there that it can only frustrate the audience. It's all done in a very good looking way, the typical Warner Brothers gloss from its A unit, but a desperate attempt to outdo the types of serious (and much better) melodramas that Ruth Chatterton and Kay Francis were making at the time.

Then there's the dauchsund who is not given billing (while Asta is) as well as the white cockatoo who appeared in a number of Warner Brothers films at the time. Teasdale is one of my favorite actors whom nobody has really heard of, but she's defeated by the weak script. It's nice to see Atwill in a different type of part outside of insane villains, and Girardot is very funny. But this is more smoky than fiery, and the result is a huge smell of sulphur.

Formulaic murder mystery is a small polished gem.

[st-shot · 8/10 · 24 August 2010]

The Firebird is a typical thirties whodunit that turns out to be a surprising overachiever as cast and crew put on a highly impressive display of collective film craftsmanship. Rather than just go through the motions with the standard stock characters reciting their lines director William Dieterle embellishes the proceedings with both comic and suspenseful incidentals, character nuance and a pace that only flags occasionally as he keeps the audience off balance with a myriad of suspects moving about the luxury apartment complex like characters in a Feydeau farce.

Herman Brandt, a popular stage actor begins to pursue a politician's wife who rebuffs his brazen advances but rather than make a scene and bring scandal to her politician husband they decide to move out. When the smarmy Brandt is murdered in his apartment suspects abound.

The Firebird's scenario is standard Chan, Moto, Saint plot line that quickly rises to another level through Dieterle's energetic rhythm of cutting and character idiosyncrasies that flood scenes with rich detail and engrossing composition by way of Ernest Haller's fine camera work and Anton Grot's beautifully lit, lush but unpretentious sets. Ralph Dawson's editing perfectly accents the tempo by seamlessly melding it to the physical action of exits and entrances.

Unhampered by a big star Firebird's cast is nearly pitch perfect in type and creating ambiguity. Dieterle is not content to have the actor's stand around with gaping mouths and side glances as the plot unwinds. Whether it's the small roll of the concierge, the governess, valet or tenant Dieterle infuses them with an offbeat individuality that results in both sustaining suspense and delivering some sharp gallows humor. C.Aubrey Smith's police inspector appears noble but employs devious method. His excellency played by Lionel Atwill is both sensitive and a book burner. Her excellency (Veree Teasdale) is also a traditionalist snob but ready willing and able to make the ultimate sacrifice.

While the melodrama may get a little thick at times The Firebird is a run of the mill mystery but its execution in terms of form and the comically provocative shots it takes at the class system, theatre people, cops and celebrity make it a diamond (albeit small carat) in the rough.

A nice murder mystery with a very good cast! I enjoyed 'The Firebird' for its dramatic flair.

[rlymzv · 9/10 · 20 December 2019]

A nice murder mystery with a very good cast! I enjoyed 'The Firebird' for its dramatic flair.

You'll have to make your own DVD, there is no official studio release. Although, sometimes independent sellers will have a copy. I believe the movie is in the public domain.

Vienesse lass Mariette (Anita Louise), is drop dead gorgeous. Her parents disapprove of her listening to Igor Stravinsky's "The Firebird" because his music it is too "wild". The movie is named after this song for a reason that you will have to discover by watching the film. 'The Firebird' is a well acted Sherlock Holmes style whodunit.