Search - The Death Kiss on DVD

Matt B. from GETZVILLE, NY
Reviewed on 6/7/2011...

The Death Kiss (1932) is a comedy murder mystery worth 70 minutes of time for chilling. A leading man gets shot dead during filming on a sound stage. Everybody on the set during the commission of the crime disliked him so the cops suspect everybody. Figuring where there’s smoke there’s fire, the cops pin the crime on the scandal-ridden leading lady. Her boyfriend, a writer at the studio, investigates the murder on his own to clear her.

Nova Scotia-born David Manners plays the writer as the gentleman amateur detective that whodunits of that time liked so much. Also smooth in the part is leading lady Adrienne Ames. Dracula-movie standbys Bela Lugosi and Edward Van Sloan play a studio manager and movie director respectively.

The clothes of the gaffers, carpenters, electricians look genuine enough to make us think that tech guys in the Thirties and our day don’t dress too differently – scruffy casual seems the byword. The setting of the studio for Tonart Pictures looks authentic and low budget because it was the actual studio of short-lived Tiffany Pictures. The big clunky technology of the movie lights and sound equipment appealed to me