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.

Warren William is The Match King. Hardie Albright is about as close as he has to a sidekick. Lili Damita is certainly his love interest, though then again so are Claire Dodd, Juliette Compton, and Glenda Farrell, though I guess those three are really more of a business with pleasure interest for him.

“The Match King,” released by First National Pictures at the very end of 1932 is a star vehicle for one of Warner Brother’s latest stars, having already established himself as the leading man of power on screen in the midst of the Great Depression in “The Mouthpiece,” “The Dark Horse,” and even on loan out to MGM for the classic “Skyscraper Souls,” each of which dates to previously that very same year. Warren William towers above everyone else in this part based on true life match magnate Ivar Kreuger.

After impressing relatives in Holmtide, Sweden with his fictitious success in America, they beg for him to come and save their little match company. But William’s Paul Kroll wants much more than a little Swedish match company. He tells his assistant, Erik (Albright), that he plans to sell matches all over the world. “And with them,” he says, “I’m going to buy the world.”

Claire Dodd as Ilse Wagner

Juliette Compton as Sonia Lombard

As familiar as pre-code fans are with Warren William’s portrayals of top executives with traits running from dedicated to criminal, we’ve also come to admire William the Wolf, and in “The Match King” he’s at his caddish best relying on a line of beautiful international socialites including Dodd and Compton to maneuver state secrets from nations in need of financing. Kroll charms these ladies with his full attention until he wrangles the necessary information from them and then he’s off in a flash offering money, and sometimes proposing a little blackmail, to governments in exchange for the rights to their national match concession.

If you think October 2009′s Turner Classic Movies spotlight on movies depicting Life in the Depression is timely, well inclusion of “The Match King” really hits the bulls-eye! For instance if you’d like to learn more about the true-life Match King BBC news published “Kreuger: The Original Bernard Madoff?” in March of ’09.

Great ephemera! Matchbook advertising The Match King, what a natural tie-in!

Kreuger’s Wikipedia page presents a fine biography, though the true story probably has more movie spoilers than even I provide here, so you may want to check out “The Match King” before reading! From what I can tell, the real Kreuger may have been even shadier than Warren William’s Paul Kroll, despite a little murder on Kroll’s part!

Glenda Farrell as Babe

What I didn’t see in Kreuger’s biography were Paul Kroll’s more humble beginnings shown to us in “The Match King.” We open with Warren William in a white uniform sweeping up outside of the Chicago Cubs’ ballpark. He quickly establishes his oft-repeated catch phrase: “Never worry about anything until it happens. And I’ll take care of it then,” before scheming with his supervisor to create a roll of ghost employees whose salaries go straight into their own pockets. Kroll then plays upon the affections of his boss’s wife (Farrell) who happily hands their bank account to him under the pretense of running away to California together. As soon as Farrell’s Babe is out of sight, Kroll is in a cab and a few minutes from First Class passage to Sweden.

Paul Kroll’s business practices are some of the most despicable we’ve seen Warren William act out on screen. While his David Dwight of “Skyscraper Souls” and Kurt Anderson of “Employees’ Entrance” are business sharks who rule their enterprises with iron fist, “The Match King’s” Kroll is actually a criminal who’s knowingly drawn himself into a pyramid scheme of the grandest levels. He tells Erik he’ll always be in debt, but that “when I circle the world. When I own it all. I’ll only be in debt to myself.”

Privately, despite his use of women, Kroll is a more sympathetic character than Dwight or Anderson, who use women simply for pleasure. Paul Kroll actually falls in love! And in love he’s willing to step away from the business to chase actress Marta Molnar across Europe trying to win her. Lili Damita as Molnar, despite one very sexy bath scene, is extremely annoying in a part Hollywood Reporter claims was originally intended for Greta Garbo. But for a high powered man such as Kroll his emotions were likely more wrapped up in the chase than in Molnar herself as he’s easily enough corralled back into the office once Erik manages to track him down.

Hardie Albright as Erik with WWs Kroll in foreground

Kroll isn’t just crooked on paper either. What he has done to the inventor that his agent Nyborg discovers, a man who could potentially crush the entire match trade with his creation, as well as his actions against the counterfeiter Scarlatti, who delivers $50 million in forged Italian bonds, are far more chilling actions than we’re used to seeing even from the slimiest Warren William characters!

“The Match King” is one of an handful of pre-code era Warren William pictures that best defines the cult of William. It’s not to be missed.

Promotional photo features Lili Damita with Warren William in The Match King

An interesting coincidence is that just a few months prior to “The Match King’s” release movie fans were treated to a kindly Warren William in “Three on a Match.” In “The Match King” it’s William’s Kroll who comes up with the plan to sell more matches through propaganda. He hatches the story that it was bad luck to share a match in the trenches and starts a publicity campaign based around the idea that if three cigarettes are lit from the same match one of those three men wouldn’t make it back alive. The “Three on a Match” scare tactic was used by the real Kreuger and so “The Match King” naturally uses it as well, but how odd that Warren William’s previous starring vehicle would take it as its title and incorporate it into its story as well.

Note: The Claire Dodd, Juliette Compton, and Glenda Farrell items are all tobacco premiums from Uruguay. I picked up a few hundred of these recently and singles can be found in my shop at MovieCardsForSale.com.