The Crime of the Century

The Crime of the Century (1933)

Runtime: 73 minutes

Directed by: William Beaudine

Starring: Jean Hersholt, Wynne Gibson, Stuart Erwin, Frances Dee, Gordon Westcott

From: Paramount

“Crime of the Century” is a little hyperbolic, but this was still fine. For awhile now I’ve known of this Pre-Code Paramount picture due to a unique gimmick it had. Just this past weekend the movie’s presence on YouTube was discovered by me; an account that also has up some more famous movies from the Golden Age of Hollywood era had it in 1080p. As you never know when a channel will get zapped for copyrighted content, no better time than the present to see the film which literally gave the viewer a minute to try and crack the case—more on that later.

To copy and paste the plot description found on Letterboxd and IMDb: A doctor who is also a “mentalist” confesses to a murder. The only problem is that the murder he’s confessed to hasn’t happened yet – although dead bodies are now starting to turn up all over the place. A reporter sets out to solve the “mystery.” Technically that is true; to be more specific, he tells some police officers he hypnotized someone to rob a bank and due to snooping the newspaper reporter is doing a solo investigation.

Other factors include cribbage (actually, that was just in one scene but I’ve never seen that game portrayed on celluloid before), a guy with a Vince McMahon mustache, a gold digger, family squabbles, sauerbraten, chloroform, and the movie taking a break for a minute to let the audience guess the villain (or is it villains?); the lineup of suspects and the clues are presented as a grandfather clock ticks away. It’s such a clever conceit to allow the audience the time to be Sherlock Holmes that it’s a shame I have no knowledge of such an idea being implemented in any other motion picture.

As for the case and the movie itself, it does not rise above “fine”; on the other hand, that is no slight as it kept my attention for all 73 minutes and I did not quite nail the end result. Overall, it’s an amusing tale where reporters put their grubby hands on evidence repeatedly, the lights go out in a room full of people more than once, & is for those familiar with Jean Hersholt, Wynne Gibson, and/or Gordon Westcott.