The Crooked Circle

The Crooked Circle is a film that has a lot more potential than it fully realizes. It starts with an intriguing scene with a group of black hooded individuals in an underground room. These shady characters are the Crooked Circle and they are planning revenge on a group of amateur sleuths called the Sphinx Club. Now this set-up makes it sound like the movie could go in an interesting direction with both these groups fighting against each other. Unfortunately, the focus is subsequently too often on comedy, rather than suspense.

The film takes the form of the old dark house format which was hugely popular in the 1930's. The house itself is full of the usual array of secret passageways, trap-doors and hidden rooms that was part and parcel in these movies. The mystery isn't ultimately too compelling, although there is a reasonable twist near the end. It's as creaky as you would expect but not without some charm.

Bruce `Lucky' Humberstone's THE CROOKED CIRCLE begins with that eponymous quintet of `counterfeiters and thieves deluxe' pledging their dark allegiance (`To do for each other, to avenge any brother, a fight to the knife and a knife to the hilt!'), drawing lots from a hinged skull for the honor of bringing to ground Colonel Wolters, leader of an affluent band of amateur criminologists known as The Sphinx Club. In its second half, the film adheres faithfully to the established spookhouse syllabus (sliding panels, trap doors, and an attic stuffed with skeletons, sarcophaguses and Oriental objets d'art), with director Humberstone maximizing the felonious, comic and preternatural possibilities, all nicely complemented by the amusing dialogue of playwright Ralph Spence (THE GORILLA) and Tim Whelan. Rounding out the roster of red herrings, henchmen and gawkers are WHITE ZOMBIE's Robert Frazer, the ever-quivery Zasu Pitts (`There's a ghost in this house and when he plays the violin, something always happens to somebody!'), James Gleason as a malaprop-prone New Yawk flatfoot, KING KONG's Frank Reicher, and `queer-acting hunchback' Raymond Hatton (later the sour Farmer Larkin of INVASION OF THE SAUCER MEN). It's corny and creaky and good old fashioned fun for those hip to the charms of Poverty Row whodunits. See for yourself!

If you've never experienced the thing that is Zasu Pitts, here is a Zasu zinger! In 1933 Mae Questel caricatured Pitt's voice for the character Olive Oyl for the Fleischer Studios animated cartoon version of the comic strip Popeye. Zasu (pronounced Zay-Sue) does her best "Olive Oyl" impersonation walking around whining and ringing her hands or attaching herself to the policeman's laynard. I kept waiting for her to say "ohhh myyyy", but instead it's "something always happens to somebody." The first time I saw this film I loved Zasu and found her character really funny. I've since seen her in other films where she does this same whining, uptight, fragile-flower routine. So, upon watching this film again I started getting a little annoyed with the constant whining and near hysteria over a piece of dust. But, there are some funny comedy bits here, and it's also a mystery movie as well. It's an interesting mix of mystery and comedy that actually works. The mystery plot holds together well through the camp of Zasu Pitts and James Gleason who plays Arthur Crimmer the policeman. The haunted House is fun with many a secret passage and even a skeleton in the attic! Well worth the watch. Read more public domain movie reviews at: http://pdmoviereview.blogspot.com/

I'm looking forward to seeing Zasu Pitts and James Gleason together in two of the Hildegarde Withers mysteries soon. So I thought I would try this first to see how the two actors gel together. James Gleason plays a policeman of lower rank in this than he does in the Hildegarde Withers series. At one point he comes out with the line "I ain't afraid of no ghosts" in such a similar way as Ray Jr Parker does it in his song for 'Ghostbusters' 52 years later.

This is a story of good versus evil gang warfare. The good are a bunch of amateur criminologists known as The Sphinx Club while the bad go by the name of The Crooked Circle. The baddies convene clothed in black hoods and robes in a cellar. One of their gang is a woman who draws the skull card when they are drawing lots to see who will perpetrate their avenging act on a member of The Sphinx Club.

Colonel Walters of The Sphinx Club receives a cryptic diagram message from which he gathers his life is in danger. There is a new Sphinx convert known as Yoganda who mysteriously foretells there is danger from a string. But like some other characters in the film it's difficult to tell whose side he is really on. At one point he is seen furtively sending a Morse coded message on the telephone while at a Sphinx gathering.

A lot of this film takes place at Melody Manor where a ghostly violin can be heard being played and also the ominous sound of a clock that strikes thirteen at midnight when "evil is on the way." This is an interesting lighthearted mystery and I'm pleased to say that Zasu Pitts and James Gleason do actually gel together well in this.

The Crooked Circle is a crime organization that meets in a dark room. All the members wear hoods. The group has one female member. They do not like the Sphinx Club, which is a local amateur crime fighting organization that is adding one new member because of the retirement of another. --Okay, if that makes sense so far then the rest of the film will, too.

Over in the old dark house, Zasu Pitts is spooked from the first moment we see her, and that's before the real action of The Crooked Circle has even started. Soon police officer James Gleason arrives, and Zasu spends the remainder of the picture clinging to various pieces of his uniform, much to his annoyance. They make a cute couple.

Other club members—who all end up assembled at the house, of course—include Berton Churchill as a jovial host who thinks it's amusing that the Circle has vowed to kill him; Rosco Karns, who manages a few wisecracks; and C. Henry Gordon as "Yoganda," a mystic of sorts who has just joined the group, claims to have insight to future events, and may or may not be an infiltrator from the other side. Ben Lyon and Irene Purcell are the obligatory handsome young couple who are both—in different ways—deeply involved in the case.

It's totally silly, but plenty of fun.