A ____ in the _____

No points for guessing our theme this time around -- but, on the other hand, you'll get quite a few points if you can follow the plots of these two convoluted murder-mysteries on first viewing. (We sure couldn't.)

And what else do they have in common besides the structure of their titles? Well, how about --

• unusual projectiles,
• piquant discussions of the human neck,
• amateur detectives,
• and truly horrific prints?

Yeah, that's about right.

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A Face in the Fog (1936)

Grade: F

"Numb from the neck both ways": that's how spunky female reporter Jean Monroe (June Collyer) describes herself early on in A Face in the Fog. The exact gist of this idiom is obscure to us -- its only appearances on the Internet are an IMDb review of this very film, and a dead link on a message board for ex-Mormons -- but watching A Face in the Fog gave us a feeling that can't be too far removed from, well, whatever it means.

The film's plot seems like standard stuff: a mysterious, hunchbacked fiend is committing murder after murder, all centered on the Alden Theater, where a new production is soon to debut.

Cue our spunky female reporter, who nearly gets offed in the opening scenes (and whose ridiculous cries for help bear a remarkable resemblance to the arcade game King & Balloon, if you can dig that). She seems like our protagonist, but in reality, most of the legwork is done by her spunky male colleague Frank Gordon (Lloyd Hughes) and bumbling photographer Elmer (Al St. John).

Together, they hope to unravel the mystery -- and, apparently, claim a $2000 reward, though as far as we can tell that's never explicitly mentioned in the film. (Whoops!)

Of course, odds are that the reward was mentioned, but got lost in one of the many, many cuts and skips that plague this copy of A Face in the Fog. It's hard to give the film a fair shake when it's represented by a print this damaged. While the sound quality is tolerable, the picture is often blurry and hard to make out, and several key scenes are so badly hacked to bits that we literally had to watch the film three times to fully piece together what was going on -- and there are still several things, like the reward, that remain unclear to us.

But even if the print were intact, we'd probably still be confused by A Face in the Fog. First and foremost, it suffers acutely from a common 1930s affliction: a severe excess of interchangeable white guys in hats. We struggled mightily to differentiate between the many fellows in chapeaus, and eventually resorted to making notes in a text file just to keep track of them all.

Second, A Face in the Fog doesn't make any sense -- a diplomatic way of saying that, basically speaking, it's dumb as hell. For instance, we learn very early on that the Fiend's weapon of choice is a large projectile, and yet "there hasn't been a mark of any kind" on the victims. As Kittka from the Specialists would say, eet's not poss-ee-bull -- and it's not the only law of physics that gets violated by the murder weapon.

And speaking of the victims, as they expire, they take the time to say "His name is..." and then collapse, instead of just blurting out the name of the murderer like any human being would.

Meanwhile, key moments in the plot, including the film's climax, are shaped not by the protagonists, but by minor characters. Halfway through, a man we've never seen before is introduced -- some rando who's yet another guy in a hat, basically -- and he immediately becomes the prime suspect. This is not good storytelling (especially since, let's face it, it's completely obvious whodunit by the halfway point of the film, if not sooner).

With a better and more complete print, A Face in the Fog might be marginally more coherent. But it's not as if that would help with the stupidities of its plot, the inane and repetitive dialogue, the unfunny comic relief, the stiff performance of June Collyer (and her lack of chemistry with Hughes), or any of the film's many other turnoffs.

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A Shot in the Dark (1935)

Grade: D

The protagonist of A Shot in the Dark, a college boy named Kenneth Harris, is played by one Charles Starrett. Tell us that was a pseudonym for John de Lancie, Sr., and we'd surely believe you -- so strong is his resemblance to the actor who played perennial irritant Q on Star Trek: TNG.

The movies we watch seldom come to the attention of the major press, but back in 1935, Andre Sennwald at the New York Times wrote a review of A Shot in the Dark that's pretty much on point. To quote one of his choicer lines (with a spoiler redacted):

"A Shot in the Dark," which pictures a trilogy of murders on a rural college campus, telegraphs its punches in a way that...is as good as a confession to us amateur gumshoes. All you must do is single out the kindly ____, who obviously has nothing to do with the case, and then observe how the camera contemplates him for a moody second or two as he stares into the fire or drapes himself in the background with an air of furiously transparent innocence.

Pretty accurate, really, then and now.



To tell the truth, the cues were so obvious that we found ourselves wondering whether we were deliberately being misled. In such a case, one's suspicions turn to other characters, idly and musingly, in hopes that the scriptwriter had a curveball in store.

It's like the difference between being genuinely gullible, and consciously allowing oneself to half-believe a farfetched proposition simply because it would make life more interesting. One is foolishness; the other is a way to sustain a vague thread of hope in the face of disappointment. "Maybe something cool will happen," we tell ourselves, even knowing it probably won't.

But, as Sennwald writes, "There is a lot more to it, routinely told, and the trail leads relentlessly to the man who couldn't possibly have done the deed." Quite so. And if you've already ID'd the culprit in a murder-mystery, what's left to enjoy?

Well, the sound quality of A Shot in the Dark is horrendously muffled, and even with major EQ and other intervention, several lines of dialogue escaped us completely. But at least the picture isn't bad, letting us appreciate a few choice shots -- like this one, where a hanged man's dangling feet cast a macabre shadow:

And even with the damaged soundtrack, there are a few wonderful voices to be had in A Shot in the Dark, like the unexpected basso profundo of Professor Brand (John Davidson) --

-- or the affable growl of Robert McKenzie, evoking the quintessential country sheriff, and a few Sesame Street characters besides.

But the twists and turns in A Shot in the Dark -- and there are a few -- just don't have that feeling of inevitability that can keep a mystery interesting even after you've guessed all the guessables. OK, fine, here's a long-lost love, and a long-lost sibling, and a "You look just like ____!", and an unexpected bit of collateral damage: but who cares? It all feels arbitrary and piled-on, filler for a fundamentally thin plot, a way to keep us hung up for just a bit longer.

Not only do both films have a surfeit of minor characters (mercifully more distinguishable here, at least), but the victims in A Shot in the Dark also suffer from the same folly as those in A Face in the Fog: "It was --", they begin, and before they finish their sentence, it's curtains.

So, a memo to all witnesses everywhere: lead with the name, save the deets for later. The alternative just drags things out and makes everyone miserable, especially those of us who have to watch this stuff.