From Headquarters
                                                                 
Director: William Dieterle
Year: 1933
Rating: 7.0
This is a terrific B mystery police procedural that is paced like a race horse on steroids. It has a large cast all getting some good minutes and solid snappy dialogue. Though it has a couple well-known actors, no one is really the lead - it is shared by everyone. It nearly all takes place in police headquarters keeping the budget low but is a spinning top of movement within it. The mystery is pretty good though at the end a huge plot hole makes it very puzzling. I keep thinking I missed something. But the strength of the film is that it takes great pride in the most up to date technology used to catch the killer. This is like a warning to crooks out there - you make one mistake and we will get you.

 

It begins with a van full of prisoners being processed with fingerprints, height, weight and photo. Then a call comes in that a wealthy man named Gordon Bates committed suicide but forensics changed that to murder with no powder burns on his face, During the investigation they use a computer and IBM punch cards, blood type testing, finger print ID, hair analysis, ballistic match-ups and an autopsy to determine the time of death. But I loved the enthusiasm of the men who do it as they go running into the Captain's office with a new piece of evidence. Suspects are marched in and questioned - their stories matched up with other stories - they look guilty for a while and then a piece of new evidence rules them out. Or rules them in.

 

All of this taking place in a few hours. For a minute you worry that a romance between two characters might sideline the film but then it thankfully swerves away from it till the end. The Captain is played by Henry O'Neill, his lieutenant by George Brent, the sergeant by the gruff bullfrog Eugene Pallette, Hugh Herbert the nattering bail bondman and Margaret Lindsay as the main suspect. Throw in another dozen characters with lines from the press pool to the butler to a safe cracker. A small jewel. 65 minutes. Directed by William Dieterle, another German in self-exile from Hitler. He had had a very good career in Germany as a director and actor.