Shadows on the Stairs (1941) User Reviews

One-Trick Whodunit

[sol1218 · 6/10 · 31 December 2004]

Witty little British Whodunit based on the Frank Vosper play "Murder on the Second Floor" has everyone in the cast suspected of murdering one of the tenants of the Armitage Lodging House where they all live in, but who did it? Joe Reynolds is found stabbed to death in his room and everyone in the lodge may have a good reason to have done him in.

Ram Sigh, Turhan Bey, who we saw at the beginning of the film together with Joe, at the London docks, working for an organization to free India from British rule. Singh as a patriot and Reynolds as a profiteer. They later got into an argument at the lodge about the money, $500,000.00, that was supposed to go to that organization. Singh is later attacked in his room by some thug whom he killed, who may have worked for Joe.

Sella Armitage, Fredia Inescort, the owner together with her husband Tom, Milles Mender, has been having an affair with Joe. Tom earlier in the movie caught her and Joe embracing without them knowing about it. Did Tom kill Joe in a fit of jealous rage? There's Lucy, Phyllis Barry, the lodge's maid who was also having an affair with Joe behind Stella's back. Did Lucy murder Joe because he broke it off and at the same time did Stella kill Joe for him two-timing her? The last three person residing at the Armitage Lodge are Tom & Stella's daughter Sylvia, Heather Angel, playwright Hugh Bromilow, Bruce Lester, and spinster Phoebe Martis St. John Snell, Mary Field.

On the surface the three don't seem to have any reason for killing Joe but there something in the past that we'll find out later in the movie that he did to one, or all, of them to make them murder him. All I can say is that even the great Sherlock Holmes would have a hard time solving this murder mystery much less the audience.

A pleasant stage play-turned-movie from the 40s

[sculptagain-1 · 6/10 · 10 July 2012]

Keeping in mind that this movie is totally American and the UK had been at war for quite a while, most people everywhere were looking for something to enjoy and smile about. Those who critique this movie as lacking some action/adventurous mystery just don't understand the feelings and thoughts of the early 1940s when the US would be facing Pearl Harbor in just 9 months from this release. And for the Warner Bros. to send a kind and light-hearted film to the UK when they were facing bombs and death was a good thing. Some of the critiques here went as far as criticizing the actors - all of whom did their jobs very well. But then I'm familiar with those who think they know more than they actually do know. The bumbling police, the silly portrayal of the women were all designed in the story to bring that light-heartiness to the viewer. I'm surprised there wasn't a cute Scottish Terrier running around. So if you like a Light movie without the blood and guts as some people here wished to have seen, this is a pleasant stage play turned into a cute movie for a hour's time.

Lighthearted whodunit with tight script, good performances

[csteidler · 7/10 · 19 January 2012]

Nearly everyone has something to hide in the London lodging house that is the setting of this enjoyable thriller. Even the young writer (Bruce Lester) who is a central character is not what he seems—posing as aspiring but not yet successful, he is in fact (we learn early on) an already popular playwright living incognito in a setting that he thinks will provide him with material for his next work….a thriller.

The other lodgers are embroiled in various political intrigues, secret relationships, and hidden resentments and jealousies. Plot elements include a knife hidden inside a bedpost; a heavy box of something mysterious; figures coming and going at odd hours, including one whose face is hidden beneath a shawl; and a portable chess board and pieces. Also worth noting: the characters all seem familiar with the play "Charley's Aunt" when it is mentioned.

The one character who has no secrets, no suspicions, is the young woman (Heather Angel) who naturally takes a special interest in the young writer; to her, the house is just a home and "A mouse in the pantry's the most exciting thing that's happened around here since I can remember."

Mary Field is excellent as Phoebe St. John Snell, the chatty single lady who has a vivid imagination.

Mystery purists may not like the cute ending scene; personally, I found it rather charming. Overall, it's a fun little picture—plenty of plot (but not too much) packed into 61 minutes.

delightful B-Movies Mystery

[cinema_universe · 17 June 2004]

With a cast like this, a B-movie mystery just can't miss. But first you must skip over the juvenile leads, both male and female, and look beyond them to the talented, polished and very-experienced supporting cast.

Frieda Inescort, past her girlish good-looks stage, gives an outstanding performance as the duplicitous, cheating landlady of the boarding house where the murder takes place. Turhan Bey, then a young actor of considerable skill with an already notable acting history, plays another ethnic role-- the sort in which he was most typecast- that of the mysterious "easterner" --turban and all.

Veteran actors Paul Cavanagh and Miles Mander round out this superb cast. You may recognize both from many 1940's supporting roles; Mander was also a director of early silents.

Beware of nay-sayers who are always trying to compare films of this era with today's output-- Phrases like "it does (or doesn't) show it's age" or "it does (or doesn't) hold up today" are meaningless when viewing films of this genre. In fact, such comparisons are boring and tedious.

This is a fun low budget effort, with an able cast, a crazy plot-line (why not?), and a few hysterical scenes (like the boarder who won't talk to the police because she's lost her false teeth).

Recommended. Don't miss it.

"There's something queer going on here."

[classicsoncall · 6/10 · 22 January 2006]

I was surprised to see the Warner Brothers/First National name attached to this film; their many movies of the era often presented a social ill as a backdrop to a story headlined by one of their main contract players. "Shadows on the Stairs" seems to have been done with just entertainment value in mind, and it works, up to a point. Had the story finished as the mystery it set out to be I would have been much more satisfied. However the "twist" ending only insures that it never actually occurred, which leaves one feeling somehow cheated.

With that off my chest, I'll agree that there were some interesting characters and a curious set up designed to keep the viewer off balance. The opening scene in particular had a Charlie Chan feel to it, complete with dark alleys and a dock scene involving some type of contraband. The denture challenged Miss Snell (Mary Field) and the comical constable (Charles Irwin) provided laughs both intentional and otherwise.

The two questions viewers will ask themselves along the way are "What's in the box?" and "Who's under the shawl?". At film's end they are both a moot point of course, but that still leaves one question. Why would the key of any occupant at the Armitage boarding house be able to open all of the rooms?

Fun old dark house mystery

[Leofwine_draca · 6/10 · 12 July 2016]

SHADOWS ON THE STAIRS is an acceptable and light murder mystery from the era which is worthy of Agatha Christie or one of her imitators. It's an American production masquerading as a British one, although I admit the accents had me fooled, but the extra budget means that the camera-work is better and the film is of a higher visual quality throughout than to be expected.

The action is centred in and around a boarding house occupied by a number of guests, all of whom have their own motives and machinations. It's almost like the board game Cluedo put up on screen. After a time, one of the leading players is found murdered in his own bedroom, so the police investigate and learn one of the other inhabitants is responsible.

There are some solid mystery elements included in the film, particularly my favourite moment with the spooky figure in the black shawl who goes creeping in and out of rooms. Unfortunately some of the acting - particularly on the part of the female cast members - is rather overdone and histrionic at times. But there's a solid denouement and good work from the likes of character actor Turhan Bey, which keep you glued to the screen.

The Solution Is Not The End.

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 4 March 2011]

The second line members of the Hollywood British colony got together and were cast in this B picture murder mystery. Miles Mander and Frieda Inescourt own a boardinghouse in London and there are a lot of strange doings happening at their establishment. Too bad there was no butler in the plot lest the solution be easy.

Best in the cast is the prim and proper spinster lady Mary Field who is most self conscious about being interviewed by the police in the persons of Lumsden Hare and Charles Irwin. Turhan Bey casts a mysterious presence as an Indian student boarding there who may be up to no good. India was not yet free from Great Britain and not everyone followed Gandhi's philosophy of non-violence.

For the solution in Shadow On The Stairs a knowledge of the American theater is required. The audience in 1941 would have figured it out immediately. But the solving of the mystery is not the end of film.

Shadow On The Stairs ain't the Maltese Falcon, it sure has a whole lot less values in it. But it's a competently made film and I'm sure complimented the Falcon well as a B film in a double feature.

Final twist...

[MikeMagi · 7/10 · 6 June 2011]

There are two ways to react to the twist ending of this low-budget thriller. You either love it or hate it. If you're sucker for a roguish surprise -- as I am -- you'll thoroughly enjoy it. At the risk of having to check the "spoiler" box, I will say no more. While the movie was apparently made in Hollywood, the cast is largely British -- Frieda Inescort as the hysterical proprietress of a London B&B, Miles Mander as her hapless husband, Paul Cavanagh as a tenant sweating out delivery of a dangerous package and Heather Angel as Inescort's daughter, smitten with a mysterious writer. Then there's Turhan Bey as a knife-throwing student from the Far East with a dying assassin hidden under his bed. As tenants vanish and dead bodies pile up, the police keep coming up with the wrong answer. But despite the somewhat stolid direction, stick with it. The ending is too much fun to miss. Unless, of course, you're among those who hate it.

All things considered, an easy way to spend an hour

[Terrell-4 · 5/10 · 1 March 2008]

This old-dark-house movie...well, old-dark-boarding-house movie...is a lot of fun. If you're willing to accept that it's dated and the acting is clunky, you'll be rewarded with something either suspicious, threatening or violent going on almost every minute, with genteel accents by the main characters plus a twist at the end that should have you smiling.

In London in 1937 the Armitage rooming house is run by Mrs. Stella Armitage (Frieda Inescort) with help from the maid (Phyllis Barry) and from her daughter, Sylvia (Heather Angel). Her husband, Tom Armitage (Miles Mander), is an older, distracted man who concentrates on solving chess puzzles. Among the roomers is a mysterious young man from India, Ram Singh (Turhan Bey); a smooth older man, Joe Reynolds (Paul Cavanaugh), who seems to know Mrs. Armitage rather well; a handsome writer, Hugh Bromilow (Bruce Lister), who is keeping something secret and who has eyes for Sylvia; and a talkative spinster, Miss Phoebe Snell (Mary Field), who loves describing her romantic dreams at length to anyone who'll listen. Right at the start we learn that there is some sort of skullduggery that involves Ram Singh, Joe Reynolds and a heavy chest Singh spirits into his room from the foggy London docks. The last character is the rooming house itself, a three story dwelling filled with heavy furniture and dark corners, balustrades and carved oaken doors, dim lamps and pots of aspidistra.

The movie is only one hour and five minutes long. In those 65 minutes we have murder, suicide, presumed adultery, corpses, disappearing lodgers, locked rooms, smuggled gold, a creeping specter with a shawl over its head, comic bobbies and bemused inspectors, threats and counter threats...and young love. Frieda Inescort does a fine job. She has a young face, a matron's body and an overwrought acting style that can move as fast as a snake from hysteria to barking out orders like a drill sergeant. Paul Cavanaugh is a practiced hand at playing doubtful smoothies. He and his pencil mustache are always amusing to watch. Turhan Bey, in his first movie, was only 19. He has a handsome, baby face, a mellow voice and a surprising amount of gravitas. He's also a dab hand at throwing a knife. Bey became something of an exotic star in the Forties, but saw his career fade away in the Fifties. He returned to Turkey, became a prosperous commercial photographer, then began playing television character parts in Hollywood during the Nineties.

Shadows on the Stairs, especially with that unexpected ending, is more of a romantic/ comedy mystery than an old dark house scarum. For two first-rate old dark house movies you should see the 1927 version of The Cat and the Canary and 1932's The Old Dark House. The latter was directed by James Whale and has fine performances by, among others, Boris Karloff, Melvin Douglas and, especially, Ernest Thesiger. He is one of the Femm family, and a stranger bunch of siblings speaking some of the ripest dialogue there never has been since. Says Rebecca, the Femm sister, "They were all godless here. They used to bring their women here -- brazen, lolling creatures in silks and satins. They filled the house with laughter and sin, laughter and sin. And if I ever went down among them, my own father and brothers, they would tell me to go away and pray, and I prayed -- and left them with their lustful red and white women." Now that's a family in an old dark house to avoid.

Unremarkable but enjoyable thriller. Its best you know as little as possible since much of the fun is trying to see what is really going on

[dbborroughs · 6/10 · 16 January 2008]

In a boarding house in London in 1937 all is night quiet. The boarders and the landlords are all enmeshed in plots of love, lust and greed. It isn't long before bodies begin piling up.

Unremarkable, but rather enjoyable little mystery based upon a stage play called Murder on the Second Floor, which is the floor that all of the boarders stay on. I went into the film knowing next to nothing about the plot and had myself a really good time. Forgive me for not giving more details as to the plot but since the film is so convoluted it takes a good long while before you can really get a handle on who is who and who is doing what. I think had I known what was going on at the get go I wouldn't have enjoyed it as much, part of the fun was waiting to see what was actually going on. It is all explained, a bit too nicely, but considering the denouncement, understandably.

Definitely worth a look see if you like mysterious mysteries of a contrived sort.

6.5 or so out of 10, 6 out of ten for IMDb purposes.

Don't all the females in this film seem incredibly overwrought?!

[planktonrules · 4/10 · 23 January 2016]

This B movie looks much better than most because it was made by Warner Brothers and had a higher budget and better production values than many other Bs. Now this does NOT mean it's a particularly great B...it wasn't. The problem is that despite looking very polished, the script isn't especially strong and too many of the characters (particularly the women) were shrill and tended to become overwrought at the drop of a hat.

The film is set in a rooming house in London. Almost everyone there seems to have some big secret or secrets and it all seems a bit unreal because of this. One morning, most of the folks are not in their rooms and a body is found. What follows is an overacted but mostly by the books whodunnit...that is, until the very strange and difficult to predict ending.

Overall, this is a passable B movie but nothing more. I didn't particularly love the twist at the end and a few of the characters were downright annoying.

Terrific Misdirection

[Lechuguilla · 8/10 · 14 November 2014]

Rarely in films do we find a murder plot that misdirects viewers with the finesse of "Shadows On The Stairs". What a delight. Beginning with one particular early scene, the plot cleverly leads viewers down the garden path. And a second twist delightfully compounds the misdirection.

There are eight major characters. At least one is murdered, leaving seven suspects. I was sure I knew who the killer was. I was dead wrong, owing mostly to the shrewdly written script.

Most of the action takes place inside a multistory boarding house. People come into and leave rooms rather often. And the script is quite talky. The film has the look and feel of a stage play, except for the first few minutes. The title is a bit misleading, implying noir lighting that doesn't really exist in the film. There's not much in the way of spine-tingling suspense. The main selling point is the stunning ending wherein viewers learn how they have been duped into making multiple false assumptions. Clearly, that upsets some viewers. But one cannot deny that the misdirection is clever.

B&W lighting is acceptable though conventional. Background music is a tad manipulative, which is consistent with many films from that era. Casting is fine. Acting inclines toward the exaggerated, yet that is subtly consistent with the underlying story concept. The film does not take itself too seriously, and it should be watched as slightly comical.

There's no great thematic depth to the story. The appeal lies entirely in the film's entertainment value. But the surprise ending makes "Shadows On The Stairs" one of the better whodunit mysteries from the 1940s.

fun B from Warners

[blanche-2 · 6/10 · 1 February 2015]

Shadows on the Stairs is a B mystery film from Warners and, despite some of the British accents, it was filmed in Hollywood on the Warners lot. It's a light mystery that probably was just what the Brits needed as war was raging.

Based on a Broadway play produced in 1929, the story concerns a boarding house, the Armitage, where a murder takes place. The victim is one Joe Reynolds (Paul Cavanagh), who was up to something no good with another lodger, Ram Singh (Turhan Bey) and also having a clandestine relationship with Mrs. Stella Armitage (Frieda Inescourt) herself.

Ram Singh, we learn, is a patriot attempting to free India from the British. His group is to get $500,000 British pounds with Joe's help, but Joe is a racketeer.

Mrs. Armitage is a wreck about Joe's business affairs and lets him know she's determined to put a stop to them. Little does she know that her husband Tom (Miles Mander) saw her and Reynolds embracing. So he's another suspect, right along with Stella and Ram Singh.

Other characters include a recently fired maid, Lucy (Phyllis Barry) who was also involved with Joe. The only ones who don't seem involved are the Armitage's daughter, Sylvia (Heather Angel), and a playwright (Bruce Lester) who is in love with her. Then there's the spinster, Phoebe Martin Saint John Snell (Mary Field).

With a second murder, the problem becomes even more difficult to figure out for the inspector.

And the denouement will surprise you.

Very well done mystery that will bring a smile to your face. The acting is delightful, with the exception perhaps of Frieda Inescourt, who seems to be playing to the last row of the National Theatre.

An unusual film for Warner Brothers, but entertaining just the same.

I felt cheated!!!!

[kidboots · 5/10 · 14 January 2008]

The blurb on my DVD says "the creatively twisted ending is what has contributed to the popularity of this movie for the past six decades"!!!!! Don't believe it. I would class the ending as very annoying and in the "it's all a dream" category - even though it isn't.

As in many of these "little' films there are tons of stars. Frieda Inescourt plays the owner of a boarding house.

Heather Angel plays Sylvia, the landlady's daughter. I adore her. In the same film collection as this one she is also in "Bulldog Drummond Escapes" - where she is very smart and sassy.

Phyllis Barry, who in 1932 made such a splash as a jilted shop girl in "Cynara", 10 years later was reduced to playing maids and uncredited bits. In this film she plays Lucy, the put upon maid.

Bossy (and married) Mrs. Armitage, the boarding house owner, is having an affair with Mr. Reynolds (Paul Cavanaugh), who, in turn, is having an affair with Lucy, the parlour maid.

Turhan Bey (in between Maria Montez and Sabu films) plays a mysterious boarder.

Strange things start to happen - someone is found unconscious under a bed. (You find out who did that early in the film). There is a strange person in a shawl on the stairs (the clues lie in a conversation at the beginning of the film.) Then Lucy disappears. Then Mr. Reynolds is shot dead. Mrs. Armitage has hysterics. There is also a mysterious note delivered half way through the film. "Dear Dwight - Why are you going under the alias Hugh Bromilow". Why indeed - everything is explained in the end.

Too Much Material for Just 65-Minutes

[dougdoepke · 5 February 2015]

Residents of a boarding house become suspects when one of the owners is murdered, the maid goes missing, and a mysterious easterner is involved in shady dealings. Romantic triangles, smuggled boxes, and a strange veiled lady complicate the plot.

Average whodunit, very much in the light-hearted style of the time. There's the amateur sleuth, the ingénue, the comical cops, and a collection of sinister and not-so-sinister types. Unfortunately, the direction lacks imagination or style. The dense, talky script is filmed in pedestrian fashion adding little to the stage play origin. Some suspense builds in generic fashion as we wonder who killed Joe. However, trying to cram the many story subplots into an hour's format squanders narrative focus, thus weakening suspense. Heather Angel as the ingénue Sylvia adds much needed spark, while Mary Field as the spinsterish Miss Snell manages a degree of pathos. The unusual ending is, I think, a matter of taste. All in all, as a mystery, the programmer doesn't live up to its opening scene, but might do for a rainy night.

macabre comedy

[Cristi_Ciopron · 7/10 · 26 January 2016]

Watchable mystery comedy, in a good-looking lodging house; this is a peculiar comedy, because it doesn't treat gruesome events (murders, betrayal) as occasions for humor, but shows the unnervingly humorous side of some dramatic situations, it depends on the grotesque side of unnerving situations (more like in Poe and much 19th century chilling humor). Frieda Inescort makes a convincing matron, vulgar and likable, aware of her appeal; except for the youngsters, the portrayals aren't very flattering, the relations are sour (the Indian and the maid, Mrs. Armitage and the maid, the crook and the maid), but vivid (the maid spying because she believes the landlady and her lover are talking about her, the writer shaking the landlady's wrist), and the script presents this dramatic side, as from the outset the relations between those living in the house are defined by sourness, nervousness, uncharitable deeds, cheating, betrayal. In a boarding house live the family of the owners (a couple and their daughter), an interlope crook, an Indian, a spinster, a writer, and the maid. The maid, the interlope boarder, and another Indian die. The case is taken over by an inspector and a constable. As could be guessed, the script was based on a play: a domestic drama, a husband catches his wife with her lover (a long-time boarder), feigns leaving and returns and kills savagely his rival, after the maid has already killed herself in an access of despair.

Miss Snell reads often, yet she's surrounded by mysterious characters, who live puzzling lives. Brought to despair, the maid proves capable of suicide. A chess-player resorts to murder as soon as he finds out that his wife cheats him. When murdering somebody, the chess-player proves more efficient, abler than the Indian conspirator: he quenches his blood-thirst by stabbing his rival.

Frieda Inescort plays the landlady, Mrs. Armitage; Miles Mander: the husband, Cavanagh: the murdered boarder, Turhan Bey: the Indian lodger, Mary Field: Miss Snell (who has a blameless life), Phyllis Barry: the maid (her acting reminds the stage, as when she declares her despair to the insensitive crook …).

Six Characters in Search of an Author

[richardchatten · 6/10 · 23 October 2020]

Set in Hollywood's idea of pre-war London. Although top billed, Frieda Inescourt is actually just one of an ensemble cast of British ex-pats milling about and stumbling across corpses, usually stabbed.

It's all handled rather light-heartedly, the energetic music score throughout making sure we get the point.

Cheap Trick

[Hitchcoc · 5/10 · 2 November 2007]

This is a stagy film with a group of idiosyncratic characters, roaming around a boarding house. Everyone is a suspect; everyone has some strange being about them. When a man is murdered, a group of buffoonish police infiltrate the house and act like Pirates of Panzance idiots. Don't even try to talk about motivations or realities because you won't find them here. We have, of course, the handsome smug young man who is "writing his play." If this is what he came up with the cop who implies that he has no profession is probably right. The acting is stilted. Some of the characters are strictly comic and there are those long pauses for us to laugh. Whether we should hold this to today's standards or not isn't the issue. There were well-done films in 1941 as well as now. This just lacked pizazz. And the ending is most disappointing.

Quickie Whodunit set in a London Boarding-House

[l_rawjalaurence · 6/10 · 27 July 2016]

Set in the kind of boarding-houses that simply don't exist any more, SHADOWS ON THE STAIRS is based on a West End hit and contains a cast of Hollywood British stalwarts augmented by Turhan Bey as a suspicious Indian student (in his first film).

The plot is straightforward: Mr. Reynolds (Paul Cavanagh) is apparently knifed to death one night when everyone else is asleep. The Scotland Yard inspector assigned to the case (Lumsden Hare) makes all the wrong deductions and is set right by aspiring playwright Hugh Bromilow (Bruce Lester). An hysterical maid Lucy (Phyliis Barry) apparently commits suicide as she realizes that Tom Armitage (Miles Mander) - who has had a clandestine affair with her - wants to dump her. Add to that an hysterical boarding-house maitresse d'h (Freda Inescort), and a comic spinster (Mary Snell), and you have plenty of material for a fifty- nine minute quickie.

Director D. Ross Lederman ensures that his camera keeps moving up and down the staircases and from room to room; this fast pace seems ideal for a film with more than its share of implausibilities, no more so than at the end, when a final plot-twist reveals that we, the viewers, have been hoodwinked just as much as the Inspector. But it really doesn't matter: the film's primary purpose is to provide a showcase for a gallery of British eccentrics, even down to the mustachioed police constable (Charles Irwin), who averts his eyes to anything potentially salacious.

Dull B Mystery

[boblipton · 5/10 · 4 June 2021]

In a London boarding house, it's a sleepy Sunday morning when the boarders start ringing for the housemaid. She doesn't come. Manager Frieda Inescourt finds her missing, as are two of the tenants. Then she finds a corpse.

I didn't cae for the solution to this mystery, nor the ending. An interesting cast, including Paul Cavanaugh, Heather Angel, Lumsden Hare and Turhan Bey all do a decent job, but there isn't much meat for them to sink their teeth into.

Even the dullest movie has an interesting story somewhere in its history, and here's this one's: the play this movie is based on, MURDER ON THE SECOND FLOOR, ran for 45 days at the Eltinge on Broadway in 1929. It was Olivier's American debut.

Very enjoyable

[bensonmum2 · 6/10 · 7 July 2015]

What a wonderful little movie! I love "discovering" movies like this. Shadows on the Stairs is one of those old, dark house mysteries that I enjoy so much. In this one, there are some strange things going on in Mrs. Armitage's boarding house - lots of mysterious comings and goings in the middle of the night, servants that go missing, and, now, a murder. Even though I guessed whodunit about half way through, in a movie like this, that doesn't really matter. And the twist at the end only added to the fun.

The cast is fantastic and is primarily responsible for making Shadows on the Stairs work. Frieda Inescort as Mrs. Armitage, Heather Angel as Mrs. Armitage's daughter Sylvia, Lumsden Hare as the Inspector, and Paul Cavanagh as tenant and victim Joseph Reynolds really stand out. But my favorite performance has to be Mary Field as the spinsterly Miss Snell. Every scene she's in is a real hoot! Technically, the movie is workmanlike - about the best you can expect from a low budget 40s era movie. The script is tight with some good lines and moments for all the actors. While it's obvious that Shadows on the Stairs was originally a play (most of the action takes place on the second floor landing/hallway), this isn't necessarily a negative, just an observation. I suppose my biggest complaint would be the film's short runtime. At 64 minutes, there's not enough time to really flesh out some of the details and characters. Regardless, I'm rating this one a strong 6/10. Very nice.

Who wants to see "Murder on the Second Floor"?

[JohnHowardReid · 5/10 · 6 December 2017]

In addition to "Murder in the Museum", another almost excellent Alpha DVD of a somewhat disappointing movie is the 1941 Warner's remake of that studio's 1932 Teddington production, "Murder on the Second Floor".

This time around, the movie has been re-titled, "Shadows on the Stairs".

True, the nonsensical plot has its few good moments of real suspense, but sad to say, as the "B"-budget action gets sillier and sillier as it heads towards its cop-out conclusion, not even the lovely Heather Angel nor the efforts of a fine support cast headed by Frieda Inescort, Miles Mander, Turhan Bey (pronounced "Two-Ron Bay") and Paul Cavanagh, can save the day.

Fortunately, aside from a few flash streaks right at the beginning, the Alpha DVD is of very good sound and visual quality.

Why is it often the second-rate movies that make excellent DVD transfers? Answer: Because they have been undisturbed. Nobody has been hunting for them for stock footage or taking them out for a screening. So the second raters have been undisturbed and are usually (though not always) in the same excellent condition as on the day they were put away for safe keeping!

With a Wink and a Nudge

[info-42423 · 8/10 · 3 July 2021]

Wonderful little cream puff of a film. Fast and tight. An accomplished cast that, in workmanlike fashion, delivers a very enjoyable hour, with many rewards for the viewer who'd like to see something quite out of the ordinary.

And keep an eye out for Charles Irwin as the constable. He steals every scene he's in.

What a treat!

Warner Brothers Romp Shows Off "B" Expertise

[museumofdave · 7/10 · 11 September 2016]

This little mystery is great fun, and zips along familiar cinematic paths with professional skill, all the Warner technicians called into play to fashion a quickie "B" mystery with some of the best of the character actors around, and one new guy, Turhan Bey, who was still wet behind the ears, but managed to be "clever and cunning" and craftily mysterious.

From the opening shots on a foggy wharf, with a mysterious large box hoisted off as ship and into a truck, the extremely mobile camera transports us quickly to an English boarding house crammed with lamps and antimacassars and ferns and portraits and zooms from upstairs to downstairs and in and out of doors as suspects in a crime skulk about and share concerns and accusations with mild hysteria lurking just below their civilized surfaces.

But this is not a serious film; it is a fast-paced gem full of strange relationships, a murder or two, folks running about in disguises, and, at last, a clueless police force showing up as things get out of hand, a couple of bodies in locked upstairs rooms.

I was never bored, was often amused, had a devil of a time attempting to pin down who-done-it, and much enjoyed the offbeat characters written into the script. Would that much of today's major films had the virtues of succinctness!

Pseudo "British" murder mystery

[Lucy-Lastic · 5/10 · 12 June 2019]

You can see within the first minute that this is an American film and their version of what pre-war Britain was like as it is way off the mark (as were all the Hitchcock TV half hours that were supposed to be set in the UK), as the building is wrong, the interiors are wrong, the police constable with his "cockney" accent is wrong and looks like a Keystone Cops version of what they think an English Bobby would look like with his ridiculous helmet jammed on his head.

Postman blows a whistle when the post is delivered? I think not!! American way if ever I saw it AND newspapers thrown on the outside step instead of posted through the letter box? No way!!

It wouldn't have taken much to get these things right and spoilt the film for me - why didn't they just set in New York? Why attempt a very poor stab at a "British film"?

Otherwise it was a pleasant hour or so with some nice bits of humour thrown in.