Wednesday, June 12, 2019

Hollywood Stadium Mystery (1938)

A prize boxer dies in the ring, but not because of his opponent's fists but because of poison. DA Bill Devons (Neil Hamilton) is on the case with detective novelist Pauline Ward (Evelyn Venable) hanging on to assist / perform her own parallel investigation... but also a potential suspect along with a few thousand other people in the audience.

Bill and Pauline also have a love-hate flirting thing going on throughout. They have some nice chemistry together.

The investigation continues at the stadium with various false leads and mysterious goings on. In many ways a standard murder mystery but the setting adds novelty. The film is pretty creative and nicely done, raising it above the usual B-film. Interestingly the poster for a Gene Autry film is a major plot point...

One jarring point is when murder suspect Edna (Lynne Roberts) is blacked up to keep her away from the clutches of the law but the film is easily good enough to forgive that.