Early '30's

THE DEATH KISS-1932-This murder-mystery is sometimes advertised as a horror film as it has three stars  from the previous year's DRACULA.

 An actor (who no one seems to like) is shot dead while filming a scene for the Hollywood film "The Death Kiss". His leading lady Marcia Lane (Adrienne Ames) comes under suspicion because they were once married. Her boyfriend Franklyn Drew (David Manners) is the "scenario" writer playing amateur detective. Other suspects are the film within a film's director (Edward Sloan), the cliched Jewish studio owner Grossmith (Alexander Carr who says "Oy! This is gonna cost me a fortune !" when informed of the murder), his prissy male secretary (Harold Minjir) and studio manager Joseph Steiner (Bela Lugosi). Two detectives (John Wray and Wade Boteler) investigate. When the filmed scene is shown to the crew the murderer pours acid on the film and the explosion and smoke are tinted! Drew teams up with a comical studio guard (Vince Barnett) to solve the murder.

There's a lot of clever dialogue but Lugosi (in WHITE ZOMBIE and ISLAND OF LOST SOULS the same year) is wasted in a small role and Manners' character is too cocky. It's the first film directed by Edward L.Marin who later made the 1938 version of A CHRISTMAS CAROL and many other low budget features.

THE DEATH KISS was one of the last films produced by the small Tiffany Pictures (1921-1932) before it went bankrupt. Their other productions included westerns, comedy shorts and the James Whale directed (and seldom seen) JOURNEY'S END.

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Karloff Soon After Frankenstein

BEHIND THE MASK-1932-A Secret Service man (Jack Holt two years before BLACK MOON) poses as an escaped convict to infiltrate a drug ring run by the mysterious Mr. X. Edward Van Sloan is an evil sadistic doctor behind the ring who uses medical operations as an excuse to kill and hides the dope in coffins in a graveyard. He gets a lot of inside info because he's also on the crime committee trying to bring down the ring. Van Sloan's FRANKENSTEIN co-star Boris Karloff appears as one of his henchman (he's good in the role but his character seems to disappear. Maybe he had a make-up call for THE MASK OF FU-MANCHU which he made the same year...). Constance Cummings (who was in THE GUILTY GENERATION with Karloff the year before) is Holt's nominal love interest.

Jack Holt (said to have been the Chester Gould 's model for Dick Tracy) was a popular silent screen star who's career waned in the sound era although he continued to work until his death in 1951.

Director John Francis Dillon started his film career in 1914 and made a slew of silent movies. He later made one of Clara Bow's few talkies CALL HER SAVAGE but died of a heart attack in 1934.

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