The Death Kiss (1932)

To me, this movie is perfection.

Simply Perfect

Boring

Best movie ever!

The star is shot during filming, and Detective Sheehan (John Wray) must solve the murder. The stange and mysterious Bela Lugosi is Steiner, studio manager. It looks like "Marcia" (Adrienne Ames) was involved, but was she, or wasn't she? David Manner is "Drew". Some fun lines... picture, sound, and editing are a little shaggy, but watchable. and quite the provocative movie poster, in the top left corner, as of today. CLEARLY this was pre-film-code. Pretty bland role for Lugosi... he was usually a big, scary character, but only has a small side player role here. Very first film for director Ed Marin. did lots of murder stuff after this one.

Myles Brent is actually killed on the set while filming "The Death Kiss". Almost everyone is suspected but Marcia Lane is arrested for the murder. Franklyn Drew will do what he can to prove Marcia innocent of murder but can he find out who the real murderer is? This is one of the better crime-mysteries I've seen from the 1930s. It has atmosphere, a good cast, interesting story, and really fun to guess "whodunit" while following the film. The movie is actually better than I was guessing it would be.This movie would be great to watch with another Lugosi crime-mystery The Whispering Shadow (1933) for a double dose of Lugosi.8/10

Now THERE's a murder mystery for real film buffs: a movie star is murdered during the shooting of the scene in which he's supposed to be 'murdered' by extras using blank bullets... Now, since this star had been linked to almost all the ladies on the set in one way or another, the case becomes complicated: first the suspicion falls on his co-star and ex-wife, but then it could have been anyone from the gaffer (the head electrician for non-movie experts) or the director to the manager or the producer or the scriptwriter - who takes on a little investigation of his own...A real FEAST for Hollywood fans in many ways: first, almost the whole movie is set - on a set. So we get to see 'in close-up shot' how a film is made and what's going on behind the camera. Second, of course, in this 'little' independent movie we find no less than THREE of the stars of Universal's smash horror hit "Dracula" the previous year: Bela Lugosi as the manager, Edward van Sloan as the director, and David Manners as the scriptwriter - we get to know them in a COMPLETELY different way, that is.And last but not least, this is simply one of those classic murder mysteries with lots of suspects and a VERY twisted plot - good old Hollywood crime entertainment at its best!

These 1930s murder mysteries are generally pretty tedious. They introduce a cast of characters and then slap you with red herrings until the final denouement. This film is no different. But being low budget, as well as a film about life on a film set in 1932, "The Death Kiss" has its fascinating moments. Though most of Hollywood's golden-age moguls and studio executives were Jewish, it's hard to find distinctive Jewish characters in their movies, so it was interesting to see the studio head, Mr. Grossmith (Alexander Carr), speaking with what passed, at first, as an Eastern European accent and on two occasions grabbing his head as he kvetched an "Oy!" But then, as the film progresses, his accent seems to wander all over the place. There's also a gay character, Grossmith's male secretary ("sissie" specialist Harold Minjir), who shamelessly minces through his scenes and even, at one point, lets out a shriek when he accidentally sits down in the studio guard's lap. (I won't comment on leading man David Manners' fairly prominent lisp, other than to say that during his conversation at a rendezvous inn with a bellhop (Harold Waldridge) who has a comic lisp, you have to wonder what the filmmakers were thinking. Unfortunately, we lost those little gems when the 1934 Hays Office Code kicked in and, in the name of decency, ended the careers of actors like Minjir.) The story also lets us watch the film-within-a film's technicians, especially the sound and boom men, do their jobs during the set-ups. Overall, not a bad movie as long as you don't expect much from the plot. As an addendum, "The Death Kiss" was one of the last films shot at the Tiffany Studios at the corner of Sunset and Virgil, which is now a supermarket parking lot. The Tiffany Studios should not be confused with the Monogram Studios just two blocks east, on the north side of Sunset, where the KCET-TV Studios are now located.