Sunday, January 12, 2014

The Penguin Pool Murder 1932 7 out of 10


The Penguin Pool Murder  1932  7 out of 10

There has been a murder at the New York aquarium and a old matronly school teacher and detective end up teaming up to solve it.  It is a classic 1930's style  comedy/murder mystery who done it.  The movie has many possible murderers and takes several  twists and turns before concluding with a nice courtroom reveal of the murderer.  The old school teacher as sleuth gave the movie its comic tone as played excellently by Edna May Oliver.   I enjoy watching this old 1930's and 1940's  short murder mystery movies.  The weird thing is that they basically feel like TV episodes.  All of the old Sherlock Holmes and Charlie Chan movies that are barely over an hour long have a formula and feel of episodic TV.  It is fun to revisit this old movies that basically laid the foundations for TV shows like Castle (which is currently one of my favorite shows that I've been watching non stop on Netflix trying to catch up on).  The Penquin Pool Murder reminded me specifically of this TV series since the detective in the story teamed up with a school teacher to solve the crime.  Castle of course has a mystery writer teaming up with a detective to solve crimes.  Of course a single episode of Castle is more entertaining than this movie,  but it is cool to see the comic murder mystery solving roots that have lead to one of my favorite genres.

Here is a quick sample of The Penguin Pool Murder...



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