Kitty O'Day - Two Films
                                                                   
Detective Kitty O'Day
Director: William Beaudine
Year: 1944
Rating: 5.5
Another classic from Monogram! Ok, maybe not but a very enjoyable low-budget murder mystery. Some funny bits with even more dead bodies. It has all the trappings of a series with a go-getter female crime solver, an impatient police detective (Tim Ryan) and his comedy relief sergeant (William Gargan). A well worn formula by this time but a solid script and Jean Parker as Kitty makes it 66 minutes of light and mild entertainment. It was in fact meant to be a series but only one more was made. Worth tracking down.

 

As soon as Kitty's boyfriend yells outside that he would like to murder his boss Mr. Wentworth, you know who is going to be killed and who will be suspected. Sure enough Wentworth is not only drowned but hung as well. As the sergeant chimes in "A very neat murder. First he is cleaned and then hung up to dry". Kitty decides that before the cops hear what her boyfriend said, she would have to solve it. She mainly discovers more dead bodies. Not too difficult to guess who the killer is since most of the other characters are dead. Directed by William Beaudine.



Adventures of Kitty O'Day (1945) - 5.0
Director: William Beaudine


In the previous Kitty O'Day film (Detective Kitty O'Day - 1944), Kitty (Jean Parker) has to find the real killer in order to get her boyfriend Johnny (Peter Cookson) out of a murder change and convince the irritable cop (Tim Ryan) of this. I wrote of that one " a very enjoyable low-budget murder mystery. Some funny bits with even more dead bodies.". There had been thoughts of making Kitty into a series by Monogram but this turned out to be the last one. The script for this second one is fairly lazy with one low-budget crime trope piled on top of another. The energy is all provided by Parker who is like the Eveready battery - her mouth going a mile a minute and being in and out of trouble like a Jack in the Box.  The film hits its peak in the final ten minutes when the couple are being chased by the cops in a hotel and for a few minutes it is comic Abbot and Costello time.



Kitty and Johnny are both working at a first-class hotel - Kitty as the phone operator and him as the travel agent. The supervisor would love to fire Kitty but as he says there is a man shortage. This being 1945. When the owner of the hotel puts a call through her, she hears two shots. She sends a reluctant Johnny and a more reluctant bell hop (Shelton Brooks) to check out the room where they find a dead body. They go looking for the cops and as tomorrow comes after today, you know the body will be gone and it is. This happens again later on. I think this scenario has been used back to Shakespear.



The Inspector and his dimwitted Sergeant keep thinking that Kitty and Johnny killed him wherever the body is. A few other killings persuade him that he is right. Kitty has to find the killer and Johnny tags along. None of it really holds together but you are not expected to bring logic along with you when you watch it. The bell hop is only in it for a few minutes but I was curious who Shelton Brooks was. Wow. He was a black song composer who wrote songs for Al Jolson and Sophie Tucker. Played on the vaudeville circuit for decades as part of the Blackbird's troupe and played for King George and Queen Mary. You just never know.