Strangers of the Evening (1932) User Reviews

Oddball mystery that's mysteriously watchable

[csteidler · 6/10 · 4 September 2011]

Strangers of the Evening features switched corpses, an amnesia victim, estranged family members, and strange doings in the funeral parlor back room. It also contains a hard-to-follow plot involving too many characters, none of whom we get to know well. Even top-billed Zasu Pitts doesn't appear until about the halfway mark, and then in a role that is as minor—yet as important—as everyone else's. Overall, it's an uneven mix of oddities and clichés that leaves one off balance yet with a vague impression of having enjoyed it quite a lot.

The dialog is certainly not the star of this picture. Whew! there is some silly stuff here. Take this exchange between Theodore von Eltz as young Dr. Everett and Miriam Seegar as Ruth, the daughter of a murder victim: Dr. Everette: "Please, dear." Ruth: "Oh, don't!" Everette: "Why, Ruth…you believe that I killed him?" Ruth: "Oh, I don't know what to believe." Everette: "Oh, Ruth, dear, you've got to have faith in me." Ruth: "Well, you quarreled." Everette: "But you can't believe that I did it! I don't know what happened, but you must trust me…." And so on.

However, that blend of the predictable and the weird is somehow difficult to turn off. Von Eltz is actually quite good in his limited role. Lucien Littlefield is appropriately bizarre as "Snooky," as he's called by Zasu Pitts' Sybil, a sweet loony herself who found Snooky wandering in the street wearing only a raincoat and so took him home and fell in love with him.

Zasu sums it up at the end about as well as anyone could: "Oh, Snooky!"

Funny Business at the Undertakers!!

[kidboots · 6/10 · 11 August 2010]

In 1932 this movie was called tasteless because it depicted some comical goings on at the morgue but now with films such as "Arsenic and Old Lace" and even "My Girl" it is now seen as quite restrained. For a Tiffany production, it not only boasted a book ("The Illustrious Corpse" ) by Tiffany Thayer, a popular novelist of the day ("Call Her Savage" and "Thirteen Women") but also an impeccable crew. Director H. Bruce Humberstone was given an early chance to make good and went on to have a great career ("Pin Up Girl" (1944), "Hello Frisco, Hello" (1945)). The cameraman Arthur Edeson had a list of credits that included "The Thief of Bagdad" (1924), "All Quiet on the Western Front" (1931), "Frankenstein" (1931), "The Old Dark House" (1932), "The Maltese Falcon" (1941) and "Casablanca" (1942).

Funny things are happening down at the morgue - Dr. Everett (Theodore Von Eltz) has a laboratory there and is also planning to elope with Ruth (Miriam Seegar). Ruth's father, Frank Daniels (Lucian Littlefield) is not impressed and the last time Ruth sees him, he's having a "heated" discussion with Everett. The next day a corpse is bought in who is identified as Frank Daniels and the nation's police are on the look out for Everett and Ruth (who are on their honeymoon) and also Tommy, the young assistant undertaker who has taken fright and ran. Detective Brubacher (Eugene Palette) is finding the investigation tough when a wild eyed amnesiac, known as Richard Roe, wanders in and says that a murder has been committed. He was found wandering around in an overcoat and taken in at a boarding house run by Sybil (Zasu Pitts) - his odd behaviour excites police suspicion.

I won't spoil the plot but certainly Theodore Von Eltz, whose forte was oily villains, must have confused audiences of the day with his portrayal of the hero. Zasu Pitts and Lucien Littlefield were the highlights, with their very distinctive humour, especially Pitts, with her fluttery mannerisms that convulsed audiences at the time - although Erich Von Stroheim called her the "ablest dramatic actress on the screen". Miriam Seegar, who at this writing is still with us, played Ruth. She was a beautiful ingenue who, unfortunately, didn't appear in any more films after the intriguing "False Faces", filmed the same year as "Strangers of the Evening". She married director Tim Whelan in 1932 and they spent most of the 30s in England, where he directed "The Mill on the Floss" (1937), "The Divorce of Lady X" (1938) and "The Thief of Bagdad" (1940).

A different culture

[adam_658 · 6/10 · 8 August 2007]

I suppose it goes without saying that 1930s America is a different culture than we live in today. The humor of this movie is incredibly foreign. For the entire movie I felt like the dumb blond who doesn't understand the jokes. The plot was complicated, but all and all pretty good. The acting is pretty decent. The fight scene is laughable, the one part of the movie where I think I understood the humor. The movie is set up as a mystery and in the good parts of the movie you wonder what's going on (in a suspenseful way.) And in the bad parts of the movie you wonder what's going on (in a confused way.) The ending does a fair job of cleaning up the confusion. If one's a fan of slap-stick comedy I would say this is probably a classic, but even as one who just don't get it I can say "Strangers of the Evening" tells a good enough story to earn a 6.

Only comes alive when Zasu Pitts is on screen, and that isn't enough.

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 8 May 2013]

This is a deadly dull thriller about corpses missing from a morgue and the investigation of possible murder of those AWOL stiffs. There's absolutely no action or intrigue concerning who these people are, how they died, and why they are missing in the first place. Pitts plays the girlfriend of one of the suspects (Lucien Littlefield) who is interviewed by the police. Her nervous mannerisms light up the film the minute she steps on screen, and from blinking to stay awake, I went to sudden laughter. Unfortunately, she doesn't come in until half way through the hour long film, and is only on sporadically, her presence the reason I give this a 4 (**) rather than a 1 or 2 (Bomb). Gravely voiced Eugene Palette also adds a little bit of humor, but that's simply because he plays the dumb detective so amusingly.

Too many corpses spoil the morgue

[Chase_Witherspoon · 3/10 · 24 August 2012]

This murder mystery cum comedy is seriously hard work to enjoy. Talky and slow moving mystery concerns a couple of bodies turning up at the local morgue, then disappearing, with detectives seemingly bombarded by unusual suspects but no motives. Framed for the murder of one of the corpses, local Doctor (von Eltz) decides to solve the crime himself before he's wrongly arraigned.

Zasy Pitts offers comic timing and a familiar hound-dog expression and urban drawl, but even her professional touch can't muster enough spark to light this drab affair. Miriam Seegar is an attractive souther belle with little more to do here than hang like the handbag that adorns her arm and deliver inane dialogue. Warner Richmond also features in a trademark role as the conniving villain.

Frequent newspaper inserts substitute for the narrative, while there's the usual silhouettes and shady conspiracies to thicken the plot, alluding to much more than is eventually delivered. There's an amusing punch-up near the end, and the parallel story lines successfully connect at the film's 'all is explained' conclusion, but even at only 65 minutes, it's still a bit of a yawn.

Dated comedy thriller

[Leofwine_draca · 5/10 · 27 October 2015]

WHO KILLED FRANK DANIELS? is an odd, stagy little film from the early days of talkie cinema. It plays out as a murder mystery with the emphasis on some very tame, almost unrecognisable comedy which no doubt delighted contemporary audiences, although modern viewers will be baffled rather than amused by the jokes and pratfalls evinced here. It's certainly not a timeless comedy like the works of Laurel and Hardy or Harold Lloyd.

The film is very short but manages to fit quite a lot of plotting into its running time, half of which turns out to be rather irrelevant. The body of a man is discovered on a street and two suspects are sought by the exasperated cops; most of the action centres around a morgue allowing for plenty of ghoulish jokes surrounding corpses and the like. Lucien Littlefield's bizarro goof 'Snookie' is probably the best reason to watch this, although comedienne Zasu Pitts shows up late on in the proceedings to add some more humour to the thing.

Enjoyable Early Murder Mystery with Flaws

[Reviews_of_the_Dead · 7/10 · 6 July 2022]

This is a movie that I didn't know about until looking through Letterboxd for horror from 1932. To be honest, this was the next one on my list that I'm working through so I didn't know much coming in. That was also the reason that I watched it when I did as well.

Synopsis: bodies start mysteriously disappearing from the city morgue. An investigator tries to figure out what is going on.

We have an interesting movie here. I saw from the credits that this was based off a novel. That didn't surprise me for the era. We start with a body being delivered to a funeral home. What they know is that the person brought in is named McNaughton. He was a lawyer that people think would have been governor. He died in a car accident and his face was mangled. Tommy Freeman (Harold Waldridge) receives him. This is his first solo time taking care of the body. He gets a call from the owner, Dr. Joseph Chandler (Warner Richmond). He's told to not let anyone handle the body, but him. Tommy spooked by everything.

The movie shows us a conversation with Dr. Chandler with unsavory individuals. It appears that things aren't as they seem and that how McNaughton died might not be exactly what is being said.

Dr. Ray Everette (Theodore von Eltz) also works at the funeral home. Tommy seeks him out to calm his nerves. He has problems of his own. He is seeing Ruth Daniels (Miriam Seegar). Her father doesn't want that and he follows her to the funeral home. Something happens and Ruth's father is attacked. Two people passing by take him for dead. They don't want to call the police, thinking they'll be blamed. They decide to take him to funeral home. They leave the body with Tommy. He freaks out again when this person sits up, causing him to flee.

The police get involved and Detective Brubacher (Eugene Pallette) tries to make sense of what is going on. This leads him to searching out Dr. Everette and Ruth who ran away to Chicago to get married. It is believed that Frank Daniels, her father, was murdered. There is also this Richard Roe (Lucien Littlefield) who can't remember who he is and was found in just a raincoat by Sybil Smith (Zasu Pitts). Det. Brubacher fingers him as the killer. There is much more going on and it leads all the way to the top for the truth.

That is where I'll leave my recap and introducing all these characters. Where I want to start is that this movie is another one that is light on the horror elements. We get more of a murder mystery that was popular for the era while also mixing in comedy. I guess the horror elements here is that we have murder and a criminal organization that could be behind everything. None of the murders on are screen though. If this was made today, it wouldn't be in the genre. It is more comedy than anything.

I want dig into the mystery here. It is quite deep and pulled my interest to figure out how everything fit together. I can't fully give credit to the movie as it is based on a novel. I'm not shocked to see that we have the undertone of organized crime. We learn from the beginning that Dr. Chandler is with a group of villainous characters. He fits right in with them. I like his explanation why he isn't handling McNaughton as it gives him an alibi. Instead, he wants Tommy to oversee it. He is a rookie whose never does this before, so that is perfect what they're doing. Going along with this we have the storyline with Ruth, Dr. Everette and Frank. He doesn't want his daughter with Dr. Everette, but something happens to him. We then get a bit more there by meeting Frank's brother of Robert (Tully Marshall) who isn't a fan of his sibling. There is also Sybil and Richard who Det. Brubacher is fingering for the crime since he is the wild card here by knowing that someone was murdered but can't explain why. He also claims memory loss. There isn't a lot that happens, but we have a couple bodies. Not everyone is dead that we think though.

Where I'll go next is a negative for me. I don't love that this has a comedic tone. It doesn't ruin the movie. I understand the era and this was more popular to do. We get these interactions with Richard and the police where he tells them that he knows about the murder. They think he's the one who did. What I don't like here is that they're trying to force a confession. There isn't things like forensics and the best way to convict is getting your suspect to admit what they did. Richard is off so I don't like that they're pinning this on him. I don't know if playing this straighter would add anything, but the change in tone when shifting to things with him doesn't necessarily work for me.

That is enough for the story so I'll take this to the acting. This is where it shines, even though we don't have a main character per say. I think that von Eltz is good as Dr. Everette. He has a stake in getting to the bottom of what is happening as a possible suspect. This is an element that gialli would take from movies like this. Seegar is given a lesser role and only here to have her father involved. I like Pallette as the main detective. I don't like some of his methods, but that is also the era. Richmond is fine in his role. Littlefield is here to add a comedy element. He does that well, but I've already said my piece there. I thought that Waldridge would have a bigger part, but he disappears from that opening scene as he goes into hiding from fear. The cast is solid overall. They bring all their characters to life with personality and making them distinct.

The last things to go into would be the filmmaking. I think that overall, it is good. We get different locations and cities to flesh out this story. The movie doesn't give much personality to these other places, but it does give us a bit of New York. We have the funeral home as well as the alley by it where 'deaths' happen. The other major location is the police station which is good. There aren't a lot in the way of effects, but it isn't a movie like that. Other than that, the soundtrack was fine for what was needed without standing out.

In conclusion, this is a fun murder mystery. We have different stories that are interconnected and come together to explain what happened. I like the acting across the board. Each person brings life to their character. If I have a negative, it is the comedy. I won't hold that against Littlefield as I think this performance was good. This is a well-made movie so I had no issues there either. For me, I would say that this is an above average movie. It is worth a watch, but just lacking elements to go higher. It doesn't necessarily stand out.

My Rating: 7 out of 10.

Strangers Under the Mike

[wes-connors · 2/10 · 18 July 2009]

"Strange things are happening at the city morgue, where the body of a recently deceased man ends up disappearing. At the man's funeral, it's discovered the wrong man is buried causing even more confusion. When the deceased man suddenly turns up alive, it complicates things even further for the investigator looking into the bizarre happenings at the morgue," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.

Much of "Strangers of the Evening" looks like it was done on one take, with no rehearsal time. It looks blocked, with director Bruce Humberstone showing competence. The performers seem to have most of their lines; but, they have not really started to act them out with each other. Lead detective Eugene Palette seems to be having trouble - at one point, he is audibly cued by another actor in the scene.

** Strangers of the Evening (5/15/32) Bruce Humberstone ~ Eugene Palette, Theodore von Eltz, Zasu Pitts

Really Bad Film

[Michael_Elliott · 11 October 2015]

Strangers in the Evening (1932)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Really bad and really confusing murder/mystery has a body come up missing at the local morgue but one of the workers claims the dead man moved himself. At the same time there's a murder investigation going on for the morgue worker who got into an argument with a girl's father when he disapproved of their relationship. Mean while the local detective (Eugene Palette) is dealing with a man who can't remember anything except for one woman (Zasu Pitts).

STRANGERS IN THE EVENING is a pretty bad movie on many levels but it's almost worth watching due to how bizarre and confusing it is. The film clocks in less than 65 minutes yet it headlining star Pitts doesn't show up until nearly thirty minutes into the movie. What makes matters even worse is that there are characters who come into the film and then disappear without any reason why and then reappear later. There are way too many characters in this short film and obviously something got lost in the writing because a lot happens that makes very little sense.

At the very end a few of the characters take the cheap route and explain what we've just watched but that's really no help. Pitts really isn't given too much to do so I'm going to guess the low-budget meant they only had her for a few days. Palette is fun as the detective but he too is pretty much wasted with the bad screenplay. Harold Waldridge deserves special mention as he plays a sissy morgue worker who is constantly scared. To say the character is annoying would be an understatement.

STRANGERS IN THE EVENING doesn't work as a mystery, a comedy or anything else for that matter.

Entertaining film

[pauldeadman · 7/10 · 2 November 2020]

This is very watchable. A good mix of intrigue and humour.

I lost interest

[jonfrum2000 · 4/10 · 17 May 2012]

I'm a fan of Zasu Pitts, so then this came up on YouTube, I jumped. Zasu doesn't show up until the second half of the film - I call that false advertising. Today's audience should not expect comedy. There are scenes that hint at mild amusement, but don't expect more. It seems as if the writers came up with scenes with comic potential, but didn't know how to pay it off. 1932 was early in the talkie era, and they just hadn't worked out timing yet. There's a lot of the talk-pause acting that made the earliest talkies stiff to later audiences. I just didn't find this movie worth finishing - even when Zasu finally made her entrance.

Strangers of the Evening review

[JoeytheBrit · 6/10 · 10 May 2020]

A bizarre and convoluted little black comedy (and the first feature from director H. Bruce Humberstone) told at a frenetic pace that makes it too busy to be boring, but which feels as if it is trying a little too hard to be quirky. The cast give it their all, with Harold Waldridge standing out as a nervous Morgue attendant, and Eugene Pallette croaking his lines as a weary police detective.

The film seemed to try hard to have many goofy little moments, but it never was particularly funny.

[planktonrules · 4/10 · 23 August 2010]

I honestly don't know if this was meant to be comedy. It did have plenty of goofy little moments, but considering that the film isn't the least bit funny, I have my doubts.

This film begins with a man having an argument with a young lady's father. He wants to marry her, but her father is adamantly against it. You see them arguing and a few moments later, the father's body is found in the alley behind a mortuary. You assume the young man did this--and so do the police. Oddly, when the corpse is discovered, the bystanders drop it off at the funeral home and their reactions are very weird--not at all what you'd expect. In fact, many times throughout the film, weirdos (as well as corpses) appear and disappear regularly--but none of this is funny or helps much with the film--or has much to do with the mystery. This makes the film quirky--but not altogether satisfying. And, with this relatively dull script and most indifferent acting and directing, it's only a weak time-passer at best.

Who Killed Frank Daniels?

[Prismark10 · 2/10 · 11 January 2019]

Everybody is acting shifty when the body of Frank Daniels is brought into a morgue. The dead's man face is damaged and some people hope the body will not be recognised.

Later on, the body disappears, and another person is buried as Frank Daniels.

At the same time the police are looking for the killer of a stranger.

This is a bizarre comedy mystery. It really is not that funny or that the humour has dated badly.

A few of the actors mug for the camera.

At least credit should be given for the movie to attempt to clear things up by the end.

It does look like a quick, cheaply made B film. As for Frank Daniels, did he really die?

Not much Snap to Strangers of the Evening

[glennstenb · 3/10 · 15 October 2018]

The presence of Eugene Pallette flags a movie as worth a try for me, but not only are the goings-on in this film mechanically presented, the poor quality of the print I saw made the viewing even more tedious. The intended comedic elements should have made this a sure-fire entertainment, but my mind was caught drifting off more than once. Nothing here to remember.

"Is Frank Dead?"

[richardchatten · 3/10 · 7 March 2020]

'Lucky' Humberstone's first feature film as director is an inconsequential little murder mystery photographed by Arthur Edeson in which top-billed Zasu Pitts is effectively a guest star.

When a corpse turns up with an unrecognisably mangled face, everyone in the cinema knows what to expect except those on the screen. But eventually they figure out what's been going on and why in a sudden breathless flood of explanation in the last five minutes.

Became Hard to Follow

[view_and_review · 5/10 · 13 February 2024]

There were generally two ways to set up a murder mystery in the '30's. The first way involved a large estate, perhaps some secret passages, and a multitude of guests (see "The Secret of the Blue Room," "The Greene Murder Case," "Tomorrow at Seven," plus many others). The second way involved two adversarial people alone off-camera and one is killed (see "Penthouse," "Notorious But Nice," "The Famous Ferguson Case," and others).

Of the two methods to establish a murder mystery, the first is far better. In that case there are many potential suspects. In the second case we can automatically rule out the person who was alone with the victim because otherwise it would be too easy to solve.

"Strangers of the Evening" employed the second method of creating a murder mystery when Frank Daniels (Lucien Littlefield) was supposedly killed and the last person we saw him with was Dr. Raymond Everette (Theodore von Eltz).

Ray was romantically involved with Frank's daughter Ruth (Miriam Seegar) against Frank's wishes. The last we, as the viewers, saw of them they were quarreling. The next time we saw Frank he was lying still in the street. After that it got silly and convoluted which is not a good formula for a movie.

Two men, who admittedly believed Frank was dead, picked him up and brought him inside the building he was lying outside of. If they truly believed he was dead, then calling the police would've been the most logical course of action; but like I said, it got silly.

The building the two men took Frank inside was the morgue. They left him there and departed. The only person on duty was a chickenhearted idiot named Tommy Freeman (Harold Waldridge). When he saw Frank's body move he decided to run.

Again, more silliness.

If the body moved, then the most obvious answer is that he isn't dead. This fool interpreted the movement as something more supernatural and left never to return. He went to hide out in Philadelphia!

It only got dumber and more mixed up. In their efforts to make a clever murder mystery the writers created an over-thought confluence of improbable events. It was too hard to follow which made it too hard to like.

Of note in the movie was Zasu Pitts who can only play one type of role: the doubtful, semi-whiny, and nervous woman. Also there was Eugene Pallette who is well known as the inept detective in all of the Philo Vance movies. Guess what? He was a similarly inept detective in this one too, relying upon a non-detective to figure it all out for him again.

Free on YouTube.

An original mystery in need of a better screenplay and studio

[SimonJack · 5/10 · 21 January 2023]

"Strangers of the Evening" is a mystery with a very interesting plot that might have been a dynamite film. But, it suffers from poor production quality and a very weak screenplay loaded with holes and problems with continuity. It was made by Tiffany Productions, a poverty row studio in Hollywood that made an impressive number of films - 193, from 1926 to 1932. This is one of its later films.

The story is quite original and one can imagine how good a film it might have been with a first-rate screenplay over at MGM or another of the major studios of the day. William Powell or Warren Williams would have been perfect for the roll of Dr. Everette. Some other well-known members of the cast could have stayed. This is an early look at a somewhat younger Eugene Palette in a serious role as police detective sergeant Brubacher.

Lucien Litlefield and Zasu Pitts could have stayed in their roles somewhat revised. Most of the rest of this cast are lesser known actors of the day.

With the major studio treatment, a much better screenplay and Powell or Williams in a lead role, this could have been a first-rate mystery. Even with some light humor as in the Thin Man series, the mystery would have had more oomph. But, with this riddled screenplay, the film in the last third slides into some silliness and humor.

There are two things that don't work well. The first is a red herring when Ruth Daniels leaves, as her father and Dr. Everette are arguing. The screen then shows the two men in silhouette behind a glass wall, and then just one man The implication is that the one did something to the other. That would be Dr. Everette to Frank Daniels. The second is Frank Daniels as the man who has lost his memory and is a meek, gentle, kind soul whose voice even has changed from the harsh, loud, rough and gruff man who bellowed to Dr. Everette earlier that he would not marry his daughter.

Another slight weakness of the plot is that there is no reason given why Daniels or any man should object to his daughter marrying a medical doctor. Especially as the audience sees the doctor as a good person who loves Ruth Daniels. But then, before that happens, there's a sort of red herring treatment given early to raise doubt and suspicion in the audience minds about the doctor. And, one more inexplicable piece of the plot is why were was an MD with an office in a mortuary. As Palette's detective Brubacher says to the mortuary owner, Dr. Chandler, it's illegal to have medical experiments and research done on bodies in the morgue.

The film isn't worthy of even an average rating, but I give it five stars for the uniqueness of the plot and interest that raises, and for the early look at Eugene Pallette and okay roles by some others.