Who Is Hope Schuyler? (1942) User Reviews

Plot-heavy yet swift-moving B-movie

[gridoon2024 · 6/10 · 4 October 2013]

Hope Schuyler is the key witness in the trial of a former district attorney accused of going dirty. But nobody seems to know what this mysterious woman looks like, and some people even claim she does not exist at all. The special prosecutor on the case tries to find her, with (wanted) assistance from a young female lawyer and (unwanted) assistance from a persistent female reporter. This film packs an amazing amount of plot in under 60 minutes, yet it's relatively easy to follow, and the identity of the title figure is both well-hidden and well-planted. This could also be described as an early feminist movie: the female characters are numerous, working, smart, and in some cases deadly. My favorite moment: Sheila Ryan admiring her own legs and saying "Not bad, eh?"! **1/2 out of 4.

Too many female suspects spoil the stew.

[mark.waltz · 3/10 · 26 September 2018]

This tangled mess of a murder mystery simply features way too many characters, clues, suspects and plot twists to be interesting and straight forward, especially for a B film starring forgotten actors of yesteryear. Everybody is talking about the elusive Hope Schuyler and nobody knows who she is, what she looks like, and what the purpose of her importance in the trial of crooked politicians. At only an hour, it rambles in its script, even if there are a few moments of thrills and a spectacular car crash and explosion at an old fashioned airport. The women all seem to be cut from the same cloth: big hair, even larger hats, and all filled with nasty comments about each other and toting their own virtues. At one point, I began to think that the idle Hope might actually be a he. Former matinee idol Ricardo Cortez adds the only spark in a supporting villain role with leading man Joseph Allen trying but failing to create any heat. Some amusing lines might be nice to remember if I had thought to describe the outfit each woman was wearing and what their character name was and what they said, but they are all off the same assembly line. Only the sequences I mention above and the five minute denouncement in the conclusion (everybody gathered together, naturally) were of interest to me. The rest of the film, a complete B for "Bah".