A United Artists release: 30 April 1948. Director: George Archainbaud. (Available on an excellent Platinum Disc DVD, but the movie itself is contrived, ridiculous and - dare we say it - juvenile).
CAST: William Boyd, Andy Clyde, Rand Brooks, John Parrish, Leonard Penn, Mary Tucker, Francis McDonald, Richard Alexander, Bob Gabriel, Stanley Andrews, Forbes Murray, Don Haggerty. 63 minutes.
COMMENT: A ridiculous script about a crippled innkeeper who thinks there's money to be made in a remote inn that has only two guest rooms. This notion is presented quite seriously as it's essential to the plot. As Cassidy, Clyde and Brooks are quartered in the one available room, Stanley Andrews is forced to take the room formerly occupied by the heroine's murdered dad! But if the innkeeper is a first-class dope, the murderer is the number one prize idiot of all times.
No, I take that back. The prize idiot is Cassidy. Oblivious as to who the killer has to be, he makes some fatuous guesses instead of pinpointing the heroine or Brooks or Mr X. As this is a kiddies' picture, alas, our killer is definitely not Miss Tucker or Hoppy's companero. So the only people left are the surly publican and his equally surly servants (whom the script is always pointing to - including even no-brains Hoppy himself) or Mr X (who even looks like a killer).
The photographer tries to work up a bit of atmosphere for this no-brains murder mystery but his efforts are as futile as Hoppy's inappropriately fat-headed comments. And as for the killer's modus operandi, how did he know about it? How did he operate it? And why draw attention by moving the body?
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