Policing in the '30's was pretty loose. There didn't seem to be much consideration of crime scenes and evidence. This is not the first movie I've seen from that era in which evidence was handled carelessly. In "Murder on the Campus" the main character, Bill Bartlett (Charles Starrett), a reporter, stole, borrowed, co-opted a piece of evidence in order to try to exonerate his girlfriend Lillian Voyne (Shirley Grey). Whatever you call it, he illegal took evidence thereby compromising it. The evidence in question was two bullets fired from the killer's gun. At the time it was presumed that Lillian's gun was the murder weapon. There was no chain of custody or anything like it for the evidence, it was just sitting in Police Captain Ed Kyne's desk.
The movie began with a university student named Malcolm Jannings being killed on campus and no one knew who did it. Multiple people heard the gunshots coming from the college clock tower. His body was found in the university clock tower, but no killer was seen leaving the clock tower. How, then, was he killed?
On the case were Capt. Ed Kyne (J. Farrell MacDonald) and Bill Bartlett. Why a police captain would be willing to let a reporter tag along during a murder investigation is beyond me. Even after Bill swiped evidence from Kyne's desk Kyne laughed it off like it was nothing. And even when it became clear that Bill had a conflict of interest as his sweetheart was the primary suspect, Kyne had no problem with his presence in the investigation.
I had a problem with it. I had a problem with the entire movie in fact. The whole thing was poorly handled and the murders (yes murders) were dealt with too flippantly. I know part of the problem was the characters and the other was the murder mystery itself; putting the two together amounted to a net negative to me.
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