Warren William and Gene Lockhart laugh a little too loud then fight a little too hard throughout the first and second acts of Times Square Playboy before everything comes together just right at the end. The 1936 Warner Brothers release has a lot going for it, pedigree and fine casting leading the way, but when you come right down to it its’ 62 minutes are filled with just enough story to make for a good modern day sit-com episode. That may sound overly harsh so let me qualify, I get a big kick out of this film, and as for my sit-com crack, well the medium as it existed in that day and age unfolded on the big screen and so that’s not intended as any disrespect either.

Good thing Vic Arnold has Casey to make sure he doesn't head out without his trousers.

As to the pedigree, Times Square Playboy has its origins in the original George M. Cohan comedy, The Home Towners, which ran for 62 performances at the Hudson Theatre on Broadway in 1926. Of the play Time Magazine wrote in it’s September 6, 1926 edition that Cohan had written “a comedy of much comic effectiveness, if of no especial dramatic merit.” The clash of Big Benders (originally South Benders) and New Yorkers, best illustrated throughout by Pig Head Bancroft’s Main Street Mind, was an intriguing enough concept to find its way to the screen as soon as 1928 before being remade as Times Square Playboy in ’36, and then in its screen swansong as Ladies Must Live in 1940.

Cohan’s original play starred William Elliott in what would later be Warren William’s lead role of Vic Arnold. Popular thirties character actor Robert McWade would play P.H. Bancroft in both the stage and first film versions, while also notable in the Broadway cast were Chester Morris as Wally Calhoun and the tragic Peg Entwistle in better days as Beth Calhoun, Wally’s sister and Vic’s intended. Besides McWade the 1928 film version of The Home Towners, directed by Bryan Foy for Warner Brothers, would feature Richard Bennett in the Vic Arnold role, Doris Kenyon as Beth Calhoun, silent star Gladys Brockwell as Pig Head’s wife, and Robert Edeson as the Calhoun patriarch. This early talkie was called “a great stride in the right direction for talking films” by the New York Times, who also noted that “it is perhaps the first feature-length production, in which there is no singing, that actually holds the interest through the story.” Photoplay Magazine called it the “Smoothest talkie so far,” though Time Magazine cautioned that beyond Bennett and Kenyon’s dialogue, spectators are “distracted by the jerky sequences, annoyed by the enormous metallic voices issuing from the vitaphone,” and looking back rather than forward wonder, “what sounds even a perfected mechanism could produce which would equal the beautiful silence of old-fashioned cinemas.”

Warren William in wrestling gear

The 1936 film with which we’re concerned with had the working titles Broadway Playboy and The Gentleman from Big Bend, which I find catchiest, but with the downside of shifting focus from Vic Arnold and onto P.H., before settling on Times Square Playboy. Production began in January of 1936 with William McGann directing and Home Towners’ 1928 director Bryan Foy on board as supervisor. In what’s possibly the most entertaining document I’ve seen from out of Warner Brothers’ Warren William archive files, William engages in a dispute with McGann and Foy over six transcribed pages that read like an Abbott and Costello routine. At issue is Vic Arnold’s age, William insists that the character comes off as being fifty or sixty years old as he’s written and he won’t stand for it. Foy brings up older characters played by other actors, Fredric March (WW: I’ve nothing to do with March.) and John Boles (WW: I don’t care what John Boles does–I’m only looking out for myself.) before switching to the tactic or reminding William he originally agreed to the lines as written (WW: I didn’t okay this!) and finally agreeing to several small cuts suggested by William which shaved the character’s age down to forty at most. Richard Bennett, who’d played Arnold in the previous screen version was 58 at the time, so William likely had a point.

Lottie and P.H. take the call from old pal Vic Arnold - Kathleen and Gene Lockhart

In my opening I called Times Square Playboy a sit-com, well, here’s the situation: William’s Vic Arnold, an approximately (ahem) 40 year old high roller who heads a brokerage under his name, puts in a call to his old home town pal P.H. Bancroft (Gene Lockhart), who stayed in native Big Bend with his wife Lottie (Kathleen Lockhart), inviting them to the big city so P.H. can be best man at his wedding. P.H., affectionately tabbed Pig Head by Vic, hits the town with his old pal and finds himself somewhat soured on Vic’s much younger intended, Beth Calhoun (June Travis), prior to even meeting her because of the impression her brother, Wally (Dick Purcell), a Vic Arnold employee, as well as Beth’s ex-beau, Joe Roberts (Craig Reynolds), make on him. After P.H. meets 20-year-old Beth, he and Vic tie one on off camera before we return to them staggering back into Vic’s apartment.

It’s here that P.H., aided by the shots Vic keeps pouring for him, tells his old pal about the problems he has with Beth. He first rips into Wally, whom he hilariously dubs “The Personality Kid,” before raising issues of an investment Vic has made with Beth and Wally’s father (Granville Bates), and finally earning himself a good smack across the face from his old buddy when he alludes to Beth’s fondness for her ex, Joe Roberts, a young pro football player for the New York Giants, whom P.H. assumes is just another hanger on. Vic’s slap ends he and P.H.’s constant chuckling and initiates a separation best summed up by Vic’s attempts to apologize and P.H.’s raging on the war path which culminates in his telling off the entire Calhoun family.

Vic brushes the hayseed out of Pig Head's hair

Mr. Calhoun, whom son Wally has mentioned to P.H. had his liquor business shut down by Prohibition, is called a “rum soaked bartender” by P.H., while he crowns Wally a “boy bandit” and “confidence man,” and Beth a “gold digging night club singer,” before telling the entire Calhoun clan that they’re “Broadway sharpshooters, the whole lot of you,” and threatening to call the police on them if they don’t leave his hotel room. Obviously this doesn’t go over too well with the Calhouns, who leave in a huff vowing never to have anything to do with old P.H. again. Fine by P.H. except Vic finagles his way into the Bancrofts hotel room and aided by the wrestling holds taught to him by his trainer/butler Casey (Barton MacLane) manages to explain his side of the story to P.H. and bring his old friend back to his senses. Now Vic has P.H. back as best man, but the very idea threatens the marriage itself as Beth and the rest of the Calhouns will have none of old Pig Head. The rest of Times Square Playboy is about healing those wounds, not without a major ($40,000!) setback along the way.

Warren William is once again cast as a self-made man of great fortune though with the Code taking the edge off him he’s got a much better disposition than found in his more classic earlier roles. Vic Arnold must have been pretty savvy behind office doors because he comes off as just a run-of-the-mill guy outside the office, where all but the first scene of Times Square Playboy takes place. Even his best pal from Big Bend thinks Vic’s still got quite a bit of rube in him, but that’s more P.H.’s personality flaw than Vic’s. Gene Lockhart brings just the right amount of Main Street to P.H. Bancroft, and Lockhart’s real-life wife Kathleen provides laughs through good-natured henpecking and bickering as P.H.’s wife Lottie.

June Travis is Beth Calhoun aka Fay Melody

The beautiful June Travis came to Times Square Playboy just off of what is considered her most important role, billed behind only James Cagney and Pat O’Brien in Ceiling Zero (1936), and does a fine job in living up to our expectations as the type of girl it’d take for Vic Arnold to fall for. Travis reminded me a lot of another Warner’s favorite Margaret Lindsay and is actually outstanding when you consider she was just 21 at the time of Times Square Playboy’s filming, though I will say she was better playing Beth sweet than she was playing her angry and annoyed. Perhaps she was just too sweet to manage otherwise.

Despite her youth Travis had already appeared in small roles in two previous Warren William pictures at Warner Brothers, Don’t Bet on Blondes (1935) and The Case of the Lucky Legs (1935), a Perry Mason entry which has previously been reviewed on this site. Her role in Times Square Playboy is much meatier and Travis even had the opportunity to sing an entire song (Looking for Trouble) when we first meet her under Beth’s stage name Fay Melody. An interesting aside given her previously mentioned resume, Travis would play Della Street in The Case of the Black Cat (1936), but her Mason would be portrayed by Ricardo Cortez, not Warren William. As her brother, Wally, Dick Purcell could grate on the nerves a little, possibly why I got such a kick out of P.H.’s labeling him “The Personality Kid.” There wasn’t a lot of Wally but when he was around it was a lot of Wally.

Beth meets P.H. as we look over Warren William's shoulder

My two favorite characters in Times Square Playboy both played much lesser roles. First Barton MacLane, always the tough guy whether cop or criminal, had the chance to play a light-hearted tough guy as Vic’s trainer/butler Casey. Trainer? Vic liked to keep in shape and we get to see he and Casey both wrestling (I saw Gene Lockhart’s stand-in in his wrestling scene, but it looked like WW and Barton McLane were really going at it!) and jogging. Casey gets to be Casey when he’s Vic’s trainer, but he’s a picture of politeness when he slips into his butler persona. He also had the laugh out loud line of the film for me towards the end when Lockhart’s P.H. grabs Purcell’s Wally and announces to his victim “That’s a half-nelson,” to which Casey enters in butler persona and politely remarks “Smartly executed, sir.”

Barton MacLane in full butler regalia as Casey

And speaking of laughs, he has probably all of five minutes of screen time, if that, but Granville Bates is a riot as Beth and Wally’s world-weary father. Perhaps not as world-weary as he just is Calhoun-weary, Bates’ Mr. Calhoun cuts loose when giving P.H. an aggressive rub down, but otherwise comes off as an exasperated old-timer who’s seen it all throughout. Bates’ best line is in reply to Purcell, whose Wally threatens to “clip Bancroft right on the button,” leaving his father to lean forward and caution, “Now now, son, not on the button,” before slipping back out of sight.

The entire Calhoun clan, left to right: Dick Purcell as Wally, June Travis as Beth, Granville Bates as Mr. Calhoun, Dorothy Vaughan as Mrs. Calhoun

At its heart Times Square Playboy is about the dangers of both the Main Street Mind that Wally accuses P.H. of having and the Wall Street Mind that P.H. feels he’s surrounded by in the big city. Both are dangerous and each is the root cause of the tension throughout Times Square Playboy. P.H. is really only guilty of looking out for his old small-town friend, but in the years since their friendship Vic has adapted to big city culture causing his ribs of hayseed to annoy P.H. much more than they would have if the men were on equal footing. While the audience is led to believe P.H.’s fears of the Calhouns are well-founded that lead isn’t strong enough, assuming it was the intention. There’s really very little doubt that the Calhouns don’t have the best of intentions and that P.H. is the one who’s mixed up, though I will say there comes a moment towards the end of Times Square Playboy where Vic begins to see P.H.’s point and only then did I find myself having the slightest doubt about the Calhouns.

The period review from the New York Times goes out of its way to praise June Travis on a job well done and states that William and the Lockharts do a commendable job as well but overall finds Times Square Playboy “a noisy comedy which manages to be alternately amusing and dull.” Personally I never found it dull, it just zips along too quick, but I could agree with noisy, however for me the amusing moments overcame the noise in a film I’ve now watched 8-10 times over the past few years.

Vic uses his wrestling skills to pin P.H. to the floor while Lottie contemplates rescue

Overall on a 4-star scale I’d call Times Square Playboy a 2-1/2 in general and a 3 on a Warren William centered scale. Like our previous couple of Perry Mason entries this is Warren William cutting loose and having fun, at least that’s how his character plays on the screen.

One final note, The Home Towners was remade a third and final time by Warner’s in 1940 under yet another title, Ladies Must Live. The characters names have changed, but this time it’s Wayne Morris in the lead with Rosemary Lane in the June Travis role. P.H. is still Pig Head, though the full name of Roscoe Karns’ character is Pete H. Larrabee this time around. Of Ladies Must Live Thomas H. Pryor wrote in the New York Times that it “offers, even in its best moments, only tolerable entertainment.” Perhaps it was on that note that Cohan’s play was then shelved for all-time moving forward.

Warren William and June Travis in Times Square Playboy

Warren William returns for his third go around as Perry Mason in Warner Brothers’ The Case of the Lucky Legs, an all-out screwball affair this time around but with perhaps the most intricate of cases solved by William’s Mason.

Della's sketch of Perry

When we meet Perry this time around he one-ups Nick Charles’ chronic sousing when Thin Man alumni Porter Hall enters Mason’s office to find Perry passed out on the floor behind his desk. Hall’s Mr. Bradbury, called alternatively by Perry: Mr. Bradbottom; Mr. Bradington; Mr. Braddock; Mr. Bradley; etc; in a running joke, plays straight-man to William’s Mason in a scene not just introducing the Lucky Legs version of Mason but narrating the after-math of the Lucky Legs contest we’ve just been shown in the opening scene.

Porter Hall as Bradbury

In that scene Bradbury awards the Leg Easy Hosiery Company’s $1,000 Lucky Legs prize to Patricia Ellis’ Margie Clune, the best, I guess in 1935-terms at least, of a long line of somewhat chunky gams passing blind from the waist up under a curtain before the occasionally hootin’ and hollerin’ audience. Frank Patton (Craig Reynolds), the Leg Easy representative, immediately arouses our suspicions when upon congratulating Margie he explains that he didn’t carry the cash prize along with him because, well, it’s a lot of money and you know, it could be dangerous.

Contest for the Lucky Legs

Bradbury congratulates Margie and reiterates a standing marriage proposal while doing so. Margie has better prospects than middle-aged Porter Hall though and drifts over to her doctor fiance, Bob Doray, played by the much more age appropriate Lyle Talbot, who turns out to be stiffer than the corpse we eventually encounter: “I’ve resorted to gate-crashing,” Dr. Doray disdainfully pipes, Talbot’s voice seemingly escaping his turned-up nose. He’s entirely disgusted to find his Margie being “judged like a prize heifer.” Margie’s co-worker and jealous rival Eva Lamont (Anita Kerry) chimes in, “Yeah, she does look like a heifer, doesn’t she?” just one of Lucky Legs’ long list of comic lines. When Margie explains they really could use the money, Doc Doray storms out basically convinced that winning the contest is more or less akin to taking up work on a street corner.

Lyle Talbot as Doray and Patricia Ellis as Margie

Meanwhile outside Leg Easy’s Frank Patton is halted from his hasty retreat by Thelma Bell (Peggy Shannon), a Lucky Legs winner from nearby Wayneville, who’s still waiting to be paid her prize money and ready to squeal to the cops if she doesn’t get it.

So this is a Perry Mason movie, we’ve already met a long line of suspects before Perry’s even peeled himself off his floor, and we don’t even have a body yet. Bradbury is impressed by Mason’s skills, despite his disgust for his comportment and demeanor, and hires him on to discover what happened to Patton and the Lucky Legs money. Mason, intrigued by a photo of Margie’s winning legs, is on the case.

Meet Perry Mason

Bradbury doesn’t escape Mason’s office at this initial encounter without first meeting Dr. Croker, ironically referred to by Mason as the mortician’s friend–Croker is played by Olin Howland who was previously Perry’s coroner buddy Wilbur Strong in The Case of the Curious Bride, released earlier that same year. Croker is all wisecracks and talks just as fast as Perry, examining him on the fly and taking the harsh step of putting Perry off booze and restricting his diet, a recipe for even comedy throughout Lucky Legs. When Croker suggests milk as Perry’s new alternative to whiskey, Perry croaks, “You mean that unpalatable byproduct of the cow?”

Olin Howland returns, this time as Perry's Doctor

Allen Jenkins returns as Spudsy apparently having lost several points off his I.Q. since Curious Bride. Rather than verbally sparring with Mason this time around Spudsy’s here to be made a fool of by Mason, who throws him into fits of laughter by tickling him on more than one occasion and repeatedly warns him to duck when in the presence of his wife who typically argues by means of hurling pots and pans in Spudsy’s direction. A nice touch is Mary Treen as Spudsy’s wife as it was Treen who played the Telegraph Operator Spudsy hit on in the previous entry, Curious Bride. Could she be reprising her role and have married Spudsy in the meantime? Probably just coincidence.

Ah Spudsy. Perry phones in to Della

As usual the police are on Perry’s tail throughout Lucky Legs as Mason is discovered in several sticky spots including the murder scene not soon after we land ourselves a victim. It’s no mystery that Lucky Legs deadbeat Patton is the corpse, but just about everyone else is suspected at one time or another with evidence of the murder weapon, a surgical tool, pointing most rigidly at Talbot’s Dr. Doray. Mason spars more with the lower level police this time around, led by Joseph Crehan’s Detective Johnson and his underling, dimwitted Officer Ricker (Charles Wilson), while previous Mason foil Barton MacLane still plays it straight-laced as Detective Bisonette, but is overall much looser with Mason than his previous incarnation as Chief Detective Lucas in Curious Bride–Mason even affectionately calls him Bissy throughout Lucky Legs. The D.A., Manchester, is played by Henry O’Neill, who’s fine as usual in his usually small part.

In a humorous sequence Mason charters a plane to track down Margie, who’s fled out of town. When he tells the pilot he’s hoping to go to Summerville, the pilot enthusiastically replies, “Oh Summerville. I think this crate oughta make that,” to which Mason wisecracks, “Well that’s encouraging. Let’s try it.” Once they land Mason is punch drunk and rubbing at his mouth as though he’s just been sick. He comes to the Summerville hotel where he expects to find the recently arrived Doray and says to the clerk “The last plane brought in a man that was pretty air sick.” The clerk takes one look at reeling Mason and says “I see.”

Peggy Shannon and Patricia Ellis answer to Warren William after he raids their fridge

Inside the hotel he taps lightly at the door of the Bridal Suite to find Doctor Doray but no Margie. Mason cracks “Where’s the curious bride?” a direct reference to his previous outing. When Margie does arrive the police are not far behind so Mason concocts a ruse where he plays a doctor to Margie’s suffering patient, complete with pencil sticking out of her mouth in the guise of a thermometer. Luckily it’s yet another dopey cop whom Mason encounters and he manages to secure a ride out of town with Margie, a chief murder suspect, in a police ambulance which races them back to the airfield where they depart just ahead of some of the forces brighter bulbs.

Genevieve Tobin as Della Street, with Warren William's Mason

In my Case of the Curious Bride review I referred to Claire Dodd, a personal favorite, as the best of William’s Della Street’s. Well, my memory may have failed me as I really loved Genevieve Tobin, who’s usually anything but a personal favorite, as Della in Lucky Legs. At the least I’d call the Dodd vs. Tobin match-up a draw. Tobin, who’s previously driven me crazy in Goodbye Again (1933), a pre-code Warren William title I’ve yet to cover, among a handful of other films, takes the patrician accent that usually just kills her presence for me and spins it as naturally as possible throughout Lucky Legs where she finally seems down to earth. Whether alone in a shot, as she often is during periodic phone calls from Perry, or sharing the scene with Warren William and others, she’s intelligent, witty, and funny and even tossed out a few lines in reference to encounters with Perry which left me wondering how they flew past the Production Code. Tobin has great chemistry with William and just does a wonderful job throughout Lucky Legs.

Tobin and William again with Patricia Ellis' back to us

Perry lays out the details of the case for the benefit of all over the last 12 minutes of Lucky Legs with Dr. Croker squeezing in his final examination throughout Perry’s tale which moves from Mason’s own office over to Croker’s and back to Mason’s, with practically everybody mentioned except Talbot’s Doray and Parker’s corpse following along with Mason’s intricate telling.

I was ready to pick the case apart, not recalling the details at this viewing and expecting the typical heapings of circumstantial evidence to lead the killer to crack under pressure and give himself away. Not so this time. The clues fit together and while we’d seen most of the story Mason tells unfold throughout the picture he brings an order to it that enlightens everybody else in on the case, including us, to what we’d missed. A very satisfying ending, especially when you recall the type of unsatisfying solution I’d just mentioned and remember that it’s what was used in The Thin Man.

Warren William plays Perry Mason of Lucky Legs for heavier laughs than ever before with those lines that aren’t funny on their own benefiting from a rather biting sarcasm that William as Mason is smart enough to pull off. William also seems to bring more of a musical quality to his delivery in his comic outings stressing words in a way that would make most anything he says funny. That said I could see if someone said this was just too much–the New York Times period review did, calling him “just a bit too antic”–but I can’t imagine someone saying that who’s already a Warren William fan. If you are, and I assume you are since you’re here, William’s Mason of Lucky Legs just more William.

A mildly wolfish moment for William inside the tight confines of a phone booth with Patricia Ellis as Margie

Despite thinking William over the top, the Times did give Lucky Legs a glowing review on the whole calling it “a gay, swift and impertinent excursion into the sombre matter of murder … at once the best of the Erle Stanley Gardner collection and deserves being rated close to the top of this season’s list of mystery films.” The Times awards much of its praise to screenwriters Brown Holmes and Ben Markson, and also save extra praise for Tobin’s performance as Della.

Directed by Archie Mayo, who’d previously worked on other Warner’s fast-paced favorites such as The Mayor of Hell (1933) with James Cagney and Bordertown (1935) starring Paul Muni with the classic The Petrified Forest (1936) to come soon after, Lucky Legs keeps as quick a pace as any of those others. Mayo had previously worked with Warren William in Under 18 (1931) a film from William’s first year in Hollywood in which he had a key part supporting Marian Marsh, who’d previously starred for Mayo opposite John Barrymore in Svengali (1931).

I’ll be back much sooner next time around with my coverage of Warren William’s final Perry Mason flick, The Case of the Velvet Claws (1936), though I may squeeze in one non-Mason review prior to that just to change things up a little. Following are the previous entries in this series:

• The Case of the Curious Bride (1935)
• The Case of the Howling Dog (1934)

Or as you probably know it “the one where Errol Flynn plays a corpse.” That always kind of bugs me because while he’s not in it for very long and doesn’t actually say anything, Flynn is live and in action during the last few minutes of Curious Bride in a flashback scene. So okay, it’s a total bit part, but he is more than a corpse. Why so little Flynn? Well, it’s just his fourth film and first for Warner’s filmed in the U.S. He’d have a little more to do in Warren William’s next film, Don’t Bet on Blondes (1935) before being awarded the lead in Captain Blood (1935)* and shooting to instant stardom. Beyond Flynn himself his character, Gregory Moxley, is actually at the center of the entire case.

*Interesting sidenote regarding Captain Blood. In a letter from Warren William to Warner Brothers’ legal executive Roy Obringer dated January 8, 1935, William, while arguing about the size of his billing in an ad for Living on Velvet (1935), gripes of the “irreparable damage” the studio has done to him by, among other offenses, “reassigning other pictures that have heretofore been publicly announced as vehicles intended for me. I make particular reference to Rafael Sabatini’s “CAPTAIN BLOOD” (Warner Bros. Archives, School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California). Backing this up is an item in the June 24, 1934 edition of the Charleston Gazette of West Virginia noting William is slated to play the title role in Captain Blood with George Brent and Ricardo Cortez in support (26).

Errol Flynn as Moxley

As for Perry Mason himself post-Thin Man influence takes over and injects much more comedy throughout this film than the initial entry in the series, The Case of the Howling Dog (1934). But that’s not to say that Mason and Curious Bride are a total Thin Man rip-off. The Mason of Curious Bride actually allows us our first glimpse of Warren William really getting comfortable in the role and giving us a prototype for the personality he’s to play not only in his next two Mason outings but later as The Lone Wolf as well. While Curious Bride isn’t quite as off the wall as The Case of the Lucky Legs (1935) will be just a few months later, it’s apparent from the moment Warren William appears, crab shopping with his cronies on a street corner, that Curious Bride is intended as far lighter fare than the more hard-boiled Howling Dog.

Lightening Mason up this time around is his assistant Spudsy Drake, Allen Jenkins playing about 180 degrees from his Sergeant Holcomb of the previous movie, as well as coroner Wilbur Strong played by Olin Howland. Howland reprises this role in 1936′s The Case of the Velvet Claws but in between he plays the very similar Dr. Croker in Curious Bride’s immediate follow-up, The Case of the Lucky Legs. Also on the scene is Claire Dodd as the best of the Della Street’s despite not having much to do in Curious Bride. Dodd also returns as Della in Velvet Claws, but Genevieve Tobin will take over for Lucky Legs. Need a scorecard yet? Anyway it’s the team of Jenkins, Howland, Dodd and Thomas E. Jackson as Inquirer reporter Toots Howard who help lighten the mood around Mason in this entry, and Warren William rolls with it in a performance so comfortable you can’t help but to think this is the performer in his own skin.

Perry and Spudsy tip their caps to Telegraph Operator Mary Treen

There’s also a decided Thin Man influence in the minor characters of Curious Bride, especially in escargot loving convict Fibo (pronounced Fee-bo) Morgan (Paul Hurst), his actress sister Florabelle (Mayo Methot pre-Bogart marriage), and as the film draws towards its conclusion Oscar Pender (Warren Hymer), a character who has to do some slick talking to explain his presence at the murder scene. These people seem like they left Nick and Nora’s Christmas party early in order to get out to Frisco and be within Perry Mason’s reach!

Warren Hymer as Pender, his face showing the signs of Spudsys blackjack

Of course the final scene of Curious Bride practically mimics the finale of the original Thin Man with the only difference being the suspects are gathered on their feet for cocktails rather than around a table for a meal. Mason’s techniques in fingering the murderer are exactly the same as Nick Charles’ though: a story, some questions, several accusations and eventually the guilty party cracks.

The mystery at the center of all this fun starts to unfold inside an upscale restaurant where William’s Perry Mason has commandeered the kitchen, donning apron and chef’s hat, to cook his crab legs before an audience of adoring employees. Mason ignores the all too common request of a woman calling upon him, preferring to concentrate on his cooking, until Margaret Lindsay beams at him and catches his attention. Lindsay is Rhoda, an old flame, who tells Perry a story about her friend, dubbed the curious bride by Perry, who has hopes of getting married again but first has to void a current marriage. Perry notes Rhoda twisting her wedding ring and basically winks at the story of her friend. When the maitre d’ has troubles fulfilling Perry’s wine request, Mason is forced to excuse himself to choose a proper vintage for himself, meanwhile Rhoda bolts and is tailed outside by Donald Woods who we soon discover is playing her husband, Carl Montaine.

Warren William in his cooking gear

In brief, Rhoda had previously been married to Moxley (Flynn) and married Montaine after Moxley’s death. But she now believes that Moxley is alive and in the interim she’s become seriously involved with Dr. Claude Millbeck (Phillip Reed). If Moxley can be found then that wipes out the marriage to Montaine leaving her free to wed Millbeck. When Mason pays a visit to his coroner pal, Wilbur Strong, to have a peek at Moxley’s exhumed body they all have a chuckle when it’s revealed a cigar store Indian has been buried in Moxley’s place.

Olin Howland as coroner Wilbur Strong

With Mason’s task simplified to just producing Moxley it’s no surprise that when it does find him it’s dead with a sheet pulled over him in a room full of cops headed by Barton MacLane’s cranky Chief Detective Joe Lucas (MacLane returns as a different Dectective in Lucky Legs). Now Rhoda has more than marital woes on her hands, she’s become the chief suspect in the Moxley murder case and Mason sets to work with Spudsy to clear her.

Perry talks to Rhoda with the shadows of the bars in the background

There are no weak performances in The Case of the Curious Bride, in fact my only complaint with the casting is that we could have used more of Claire Dodd as Della Street. Lindsay has a fair amount of screen time as Rhoda Montaine and does a fine job at coloring her character just gray enough to leave us wondering, all the while feeling sympathetic towards her just in case she really is innocent! Allen Jenkins is hilarious as Spudsy and steals several scenes, though perhaps my favorite is one he shares sitting on a stoop with Warren William where the two men are overcome by the tear gas Spudsy has been carrying as they say their farewells for the evening.

Spudsy and Perry break down at their farewell

Also featured in the cast are Phillip Reed, somewhat invisible as Doctor Millbeck, Rhoda’s latest prospective husband; Winifred Shaw as Pender’s (Hymer) singing sister; Charles Richman, effectively pompous as Montaine’s (Woods) father who hopes to see daughter-in-law Rhoda found guilty; Robert Gleckler and James Donlan as Barton MacLane’s underlings, Detectives Byrd and Fritz, both of whom have their moments of comedy relief; and Henry Kolker as heavy handed District Attorney Stacey who’ll go as far as legally possible to finally hand defeat to Perry Mason.

Michael Curtiz keeps Curious Bride’s overall pace as snappy as its dialogue dissolving each scene through a literal fog which can seem abrupt at times but certainly does as intended in keeping things moving briskly. Except when Perry and his gang are together most of Curious Bride is set inside tight quarters, often with Perry (or Spudsy) trapping somebody under their questioning, one exception being the airport scene which involves a lot of moving parts but at the same time does see Perry lock himself inside a phone booth with Rhoda where he can dictate his orders and keep her away from the eyes of the police.

Claire Dodd as Della Street

The Case of the Curious Bride began production January 28, 1935 and was released as a Clue Club Picture by First National Pictures through Warner Brothers on April 8, 1935. In an April 5 review the New York Times says of The Case of the Curious Bride that “the pace is swift, the solution well hidden, the comedy good and—but isn’t that enough?” I have to agree.