Danger on the Air (1938)

Expected more

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Another in Universal's Crime Club series. This one is about a murder at a radio station, a fairly popular plot for murder mysteries back then. Donald Woods stars as a radio engineer turned amateur detective who sets out to nab the killer with help from pretty Nan Grey. Woods spouts off scientific lingo and is distracted by engineering issues with the radio broadcasts. That's different enough to make this a little more interesting than the average B mystery film. Nice cast backing up Woods and Grey includes Berton Churchill, Edward Van Sloan, and William Lundigan. Lee J. Cobb appears in one of his Mario Bros. exaggerated accent roles he did early in his career. Peter Lind Hayes is annoying as a guy wanting to break into radio by doing impressions. His impressions suck. Worth a look if you enjoy B mysteries from this period, which can kind of bleed together after you've seen enough of them.

Murder and comedy do mix; We learned that through Philo Vance, Nick and Nora, and various other amateur detectives who sneaked their way into screwball comedy in the 1930's. So in this neat little Universal second feature, there's quite a bit of it around. The opening sequence shows the hateful radio show sponsor Caesar Kluck (a delightfully imperious Breton Churchill) keep putting his foot in it, abusing the staff, sexually harassing pretty Nan Grey and insulting the talent on the show he sponsors. So when he turns up deader than a decapitated chicken, nobody is surprised, but the death at first appears to be from natural causes, not aided along by man. Grey, along with sound engineer Donald Woods, takes charge of exposing the truth which reveals a lot of suspects and some surprising clues. Of course, he gets no help from equally imperious radio station owner Jed Prouty who ironically was nowhere to be seen in the early scenes while Churchill was around. Prouty is very funny in a scene where he tries to keep the press at bay, insisting that there's no poison in the station's air conditioning system while being surrounded by fans, humidifiers and anything else that would remove anything toxic.Moving along briskly with the frenetic surroundings of the radio station creating a lot of normal daily havoc in addition to the two murders which occur, this is a nice little surprise to find amongst the many mediocre low budge murder mysteries of the 1930's and 40's. Woods, a normally dull actor with little pizazz, adds some oomph to his sound engineer, getting in some good cracks at the expense of both Churchill and Prouty. Skeets Gallagher adds his usual plethora of subtle acidic comedy, while many other familiar faces (including a young Lee J. Cobb) pop up as well. There's even a Bing Crosby imitator thrown in for good measure. So while radio means very little to people today without cars, it once was the cheap way of receiving entertainment, and in this case, the Big Broadcast is a great way to spend an hour. You won't feel at all cheated.

With a cast full of familiar faces who have experience in playing sinister and villainous roles it will be hard to pick who did the murder here. In fact during the course Danger On The Air another homicide is committed.Berton Churchill is our victim and the setting is a radio studio. Churchill is once again an unctuous bloviating personality who thinks the world revolves around him and his product. He was killed during a broadcast of his program in a most unique manner which I won't reveal except to say a variation on the method was used in one of the Boris Karloff Mr. Wong movies.The only member of the radio staff who actually stands up to Churchill is sound engineer Donald Woods and its Woods together Nan Grey who solve the mystery. Churchill was not the kind of guy anyone was going to mourn, but the other death is that of the station janitor Lee J. Cobb in an early role for him and it was simply a byproduct of the Churchill homicide.Special attention should be paid to Peter Lind Hayes who plays a young usher at the station who treats us all to a series of imitations of various radio personalities of the day including Bing Crosby, Ben Bernie, and Rudy Vallee and many more. The only hint I'll give you is the eventual killer is not one you would think capable. A good B picture cast gave Universal a good programmer.

This is a likable little murder mystery - and I mean that literally: even counting a trigger-happy gangster and a loudmouthed boss, the murder victim is still by far the most unlikable person in the film (and, needless to say, gets an early exit)! There are so many characters in this dense mystery that you may need to watch it twice to get it all straight in your head, but even that won't take up too much of your time, as the film is barely over an hour long and moves quickly enough. And there are at least three fairly unique elements in it: 1) The killing method (which I don't want to spoil here), 2) The fact that, when our amateur detective assembles all the suspects in one room at the end he does NOT know who the murderer is, he only knows how he did it, and how to expose him, and 3) Nan Grey deals with the unwanted advances of a much older man in a way that you very rarely see in such an early film: by a strong punch to his gut! (though the actual contact happens off-screen). **1/2 out of 4.