Small House of Everything

Small House of Everything

Tuesday, May 2, 2023

OVERLOOKED FILM: THE MYSTERY MAN (1935)

Near the very bottom of the movie food chain is Monogram Pictures, purveyors of cheap, fast, cheap, clunky, cheap films (did I mention cheap?) designed for a non-discriminating audience.  Since The Mystery Man is a Monogram film, you'd expect something atrocious.  Surprisingly, the movie has a few redeeming qualities.

Larry Doyle (Robert Armstrong) is an alcoholic reporter who has just insulted his boos.  The next thing he remembers, he is on a train to St. Louis, with a revolver and just one dollar in his pocket.  The revolver was a gift he had received for breaking a big story.  To get money, he pawns the gun.  He then meets Anne Ogilvie (Maxine Dopyle) at a lunch counter where she does not have enough money to pay for her coffee and donut.  Doyle pays her twenty-cent bill and decides the innocent Ann needs looking after and takes her under his wing in a platonic way.  Doyle remembers (he had been pretty drunk, after all) that is an investigative reporter who is working on a story about a mysterious gangster, "The Eel."  Things get complicated when the revolver he has pawned is found to have been used in a murder, and now Doyle is in the soup.

Armstrong (King Kong, Son of Kong, Might Joe Young) is the only recognizable name in the film.  Also featured are Henry Kolker, LeRoy Mason, James Burke, Guy Usher, James Burtis, and Monte Collins.  

The Mystery Man was directed by Ray McCarey, the brother of Leo McCarey.  Ray had a varied but undistinguished output as a directer, including some Our Gang,  Laurel and Hardy, and Three Stooges films.  The script was written by John W. Kraft (Here's Flash Casey, The House of Secrets
Foreign Agent) from William A. Johnston's adapation of a story by Tate Finn; both Johnston and Finn  have only this movie on their IMDb credits.

Enjoy.

https://archive.org/details/The_Mystery_Man--1935

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