The King Murder (1932)

An enjoyable and complicated whodunnit. Dorothy Revier is Miriam King, who is... shall we say, popular with rich men. She has a number of lovers from whom she often extracts cash by charm or blackmail if that doesn't work. But the blackmailer is also being pushed for cash herself.

Meanwhile Elizabeth Hawthorn (Natalie Moorhead) is concerned that her fiance is one of Miriam's friends and warns the police that something might happen. Funnily enough not long after the police, in the form of Detective Henry Barton (Conway Tearle), are called to her apartment where she has been found dead. Now she was originally found dead by one of her ex-s Jose Moreno (Don Alvarado) who was burgularing her apartment at the time! Plus there is Miriam's ex-friend Pearl Hope (Marceline Day) who is Jose's current squeeze...

So nicely complex, a murder investigation with many potential suspects. The case was in fact based on a real-life murder of NY showgirl Dorothy King in 1923. The investigation led by Barton is a fairly straightforward police procedural. A bit of a plodder but the conclusion (and revealed method of murder) is fascinating.