Strange Affair (1944) User Reviews

Keyes and Joslyn in follow-up to "Dangerous Blondes"...

[Doylenf · 6/10 · 24 May 2010]

Another in a line of successful comedy/mysteries for Columbia's B-film assembly, starring EVELYN KEYES and ALLYN JOSLYN who get into all kinds of silly business while trying to solve a doctor's murder.

All of it is played for humorous effects and some of it actually works pretty well. Keyes is pert and vivacious as a frisky blonde who is always trailing behind hubby Joslyn (lucky for him) and helps nab the culprits just before the wind-up.

MARGUERITE CHAPMAN does nicely as a sophisticated femme fatale and SHEMP HOWARD has a brief comic routine as a laundry truck driver. HUGO HAAS has a pivotal role as a doorman friend of Joslyn.

It passes the time, a programmer that played the lower half of double bills in the '40s. Keyes almost overdoes the many farcical turns of her role but manages to be charming nevertheless, giving her role the light touch it needs and Joslyn is in fine style as her long-suffering husband.

One star worth seven stars

[CaptainHamhock · 7/10 · 8 August 2021]

This was not a good attempt at recreating the success of The Thin Man series. Most of the stars from me are for Evelyn Keyes, who did a great job whenever she was on screen. Sadly, when she was not on screen the movie really had nothing going for it. Her physical comedy was great to watch, and she held nothing back in 'selling' her character. The three actors playing police clearly had a hard time holding on to her, when she was beating them senseless at the police station. The movie was short, and otherwise harmless enough, to watch once for one good performance. But then I do like the period movies.

Tries hard to be The Thin Man

[bensonmum2 · 5/10 · 27 April 2020]

I haven't actually done any research on this, but I get a sneaky feeling that Strange Affair was an attempt by another studio (Columbia in this case) to cash-in on the success of The Thin Man series. You can't help but notice the similarities - a fairly wealthy, thoroughly urban couple with modern (for its time) sensibilities gets mixed-up in solving a murder. Even the couple's banter and playful jealousy is straight out of the Nick and Nora playbook. Allyn Joslyn and Evelyn Keyes are fine as the would-be sleuths, but William Powell and Myrna Loy they aren't. Joslyn and Keys just don't have the same chemistry that Powell and Loy had.

As for the rest of the film, the murder is okay, but nothing spectacular. It's pretty much impossible to play along with other than the old adage about the least suspicious person being the killer. The comedy can be hit or miss, with the scenes involving Joslyn acting as the doorman being among my favorite. The movie looks great, but most Columbia pictures from the 40s do. The supporting cast is fine. I always love seeing Shemp Howard pop-up in the most unlikely of places. He does a great bit involving counting shirts for the laundry.

As much as I'd like to rate Strange Affair higher, it's really only about average as far as entertainment value goes. Joslyn and Keyes give it their all, but are let down by a fairly routine script.

5/10

Even Sillier Than The First One

[reader4 · 6/10 · 25 May 2010]

This is obviously a sequel to Dangerous Blonds (1943). So why did their names change?

I guess now any male crime solver who is assisted (or hindered, as the case may be) by his wife is a "Thin Man" ripoff. The price of success, I suppose. Does that mean Bringing Up Baby (1938) is a "Thin Man" ripoff? How about A Shot In The Dark (1964)? At least in that one, the crime solver was a cop.

(In case anyone is interested, which I doubt, my favorite "Thin Man rip-off" is There's Always A Woman (1938), which I also reviewed.)

There are a few interesting stars in this one. Nina Foch, who was great in Escape in the Fog (1945), is mostly wasted in a small part. Edgar Buchanan, who played Uncle Joe on Petticoat Junction, younger and skinnier (although not actually skinny) and with more hair than I've ever seen him. Shemp Howard in a rehash of a routine that originally was about dividing up money but now is about filling a laundry bag. (If you want to see Shemp in a great role outside The Three Stooges, check out The Bank Dick (1940)).

The humor is a step up from the 3-year-old level of the Three Stooges. More like the 8-year-old level. Enjoyable enough, but I didn't keep it. I did keep Dangerous Blonds, though, which is a shade less juvenile, although still very silly and ridiculous.

Reasonably amusing Thin Man imitator

[lotekguy-1 · 6/10 · 12 October 2021]

To fully appreciate the brilliant chemistry of Powell and Loy as Nick and Nora Charles, just watch any of the myriad wannabes like this one. They try; some come close; but nobody did it better.

Joslyn and Keyes try almost too hard in a script that's above average for the array of aspirants. It's also fun to see Shemp Howard used so effectively in the early going. Nice try, but easy to see why these characters didn't warrant sequels.

Second Attempt To Duplicate Thin Man

[DKosty123 · 6/10 · 16 May 2020]

Keyes and Joselyn are reunited from 1943's Dangerous Blondes but the results are about the same though this script might just be a little worse. This time Joselyn is a Cartoonist trying to become a Detective. Nina Foche is here to distract him, and Keyes is his devoted wife who in this case is always expected to save her man. Edgar Bucanan is a detective with the police, is his role is kind of small and wasted. Shemp Howard does some very poor comic relief as a Laundry guy who is in need of a calculator. It's like they just threw in his routine to give him something to do, because once he is in the film he has 2 scenes and then is poof-gone.

Best thing about this one is watching the police pick up Keyes whose trying to save her husband from some desperate b movie criminals who are plotting to steal intelligence for some evil purposes. The wrestling match of Keyes with 3 policemen is the highlight of the movie. She is really quite a hand full and this sequence is better than the cat fight in Dangerous Blondes.

Not 'Strange' enough...yet another knock-off of "The Thin Man", this time with juvenile humor

[moonspinner55 · 4/10 · 24 May 2010]

Allyn Joslyn is fairly insufferable playing a cartoonist who continually annoys the local police while butting into their cases; as his better half, Evelyn Keyes yips and yelps with cartoonish abandon, trying to make something light and cute out of this script. Based on Oscar Saul's story "Stalk the Hunter", four screenwriters (Saul included) manage to turn this comedic murder mystery into a flighty "Thin Man" derivative (the opening sequence typifies the rest: a cute visual followed by outright silliness). Plot has a doctor poisoned at a social gathering, with another doctor the prime suspect. As usual, the law is always three steps behind the snooping marrieds, and the one-liners alternate between amusing and ridiculous. *1/2 from ****

Nothing more than another Thin Man made on the cheap.

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 2 August 2018]

Amateur detectives have been around in movies a long time before Nick and Nora (and Asta!) solved their first "Thin Man" murder mystery. Ten years after that, they were still going strong (having "Gone Home" the same year), and Powell had moved onto other mysteries with spouses (current and ex) Ginger Rogers and Jean Arthur, and other couples got along the murder mystery solving band wagon as well. So by the time that Allyn Joslyn and Evelyn Keyes jumped on that bandwagon for the entertaining but standard "Dangerous Blondes" in 1943, the idea was old hat. They are back again, although their character names are different, but it is basically more of the same, murder in high society and all sorts of suspects, both of high and low society, involved.

The revelation of the murder is actually pretty clever with the dead man sitting still at a huge dinner party at a lavish nightclub as if he had just had too much to drink and couldn't think of a word to say in his drunken stupor. But he's stiff in a different way, with smoke coming out of his mouth thanks to a lit cigarette which has done everything but light his lips on fire. The supporting cast is fine, including Marguerite Chapman as a delightfully nasty socialite and Shemp Howard as a temperamental truck driver whose truck nearly decapitates Joslyn in the opening scene. The script is just average though, giving no real surprises, and making this simply just an acceptable programmer that is practically identical to all the other murder mystery comedies released in the 1930's and 40's.

A kind of sequel to "Dangerous Blondes"...kind of.

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 13 October 2021]

"Dangerous Blondes" (1943) was a very good and most agreeable mystery film starring Allyn Joslyn and Evelyn Keyes. So it's not surprising they would return them a year later for a sequel. But here's the odd part....it's NOT a sequel...but it also is! The names are not the same and Joslyn's character is no longer a crime fiction writer but an artist who has a crime comic strip. Why the changes? I have no idea...none. But the feeling and spirit of the films clearly is identical...a sequel! I scored the first film an 8....is "Strange Affair" also that good??

The film, naturally, features a murder and, naturally, the cops are really dumb (particularly the investigator's assistant)...so it takes an amateur to solve the case! This is THE blueprint for this sort of film....and Hollywood might have made 500 or more films like it. In many cases, it's a newspaper reporter (such as Lee Tracy), but it could also be a teach (Edna May Oliver) or any other non-police person who somehow knows more than trained cops!

When the story begins, Bill (Joslyn) meets Mr. Baumler. Oddly, later in a night club, he sees Mr. Baumler again...but it's a different person! Apparently, there is a faux Baumler. But before he can figure out WHY and WHO....the second Baumler dies right there at the table in the club! The police foolishly are quick to assume it's a heart attack that killed him. But Bill, being the know-it-all amateur, assumes he was poisoned...which they soon realize is the case. So what is really going on here and how will Bill and his lady friend (Keyes) get to the bottom of this case?

My feeling is that if you liked the first film, you'll like the second. This is because in both the mystery isn't as important as the interplay between Keyes and Joslyn...which is snappy and funny. Well worth seeing. And the best part...near the end when the dopey cops arrest Keyes. Her reaction is priceless!!

Insult to blondes

[ljones172-223-130401 · 2/10 · 14 October 2021]

This is the worse representation of women I have seen in a long time. Allyn does a terrible job. It is not funny just stupid. I would not recommend this to anyone.