Books On Film: Penguin Pool Murder (1932)
One of my favorite ways to spend my time is by watching old funny mystery movies that were very smart and also packed a lot of plot and a lot of laughs into a very short running time. This movie was the first of a series featuring a character named (I kid you not) Hildegarde Withers as a school teacher who uses her brains to help the police solve a crime. Hildegarde Withers was created by the author Stuart Palmer, and was featured in many novels and short stories, but THIS was her first appearance on the silver screen.
Because this movie is just one hour and ten minutes long (!!!) the plot unfolds very quickly. Most of the story takes place at the New York Aquarium, where (SPOILER ALERT) someone gets murdered! Oh, and before you ask, "Do you mean the New York Aquarium in Coney Island?" the answer is NO. Stay tuned for more details about the filming location coming soon ... but let's get back to the movie for now!
Here are some shots that show what the interior of the New York Aquarium looked like back in 1932:
And here's one of our first murder suspects, before the murder has been committed!
If your mysterious caller is having a financial crisis and needs $5,000 by Wednesday, that's never a good sign. And hey, it's 1932, so there are plenty of problems with people who lost money or are still losing money through the stock market.
Guess what? This lady's husband is a shady stockbroker. His clients don't like him, and his wife isn't too thrilled with him either. GUESS WHO THE MURDER VICTIM WILL BE!!!
Also, is this her "hanging around the house" outfit?
Also, WOW, WHAT A HOUSE!!!
Meanwhile, back at the aquarium ...
Here is one of the stars of our picture. She doesn't get any credit, but she does get a lot of screen time! Oh, and BTW, we only see one penguin, EVER.
And now, on to the biggest HUMAN star of this picture:
Hildegarde Withers has just tripped a pickpocket with her umbrella. She did this while escorting her class of students around the aquarium. And, I don't know if this was unusual for the 1930s or not, but based on my love of old movies, I was pleasantly surprised to see such a multicultural mix of students in her class!
Uh-oh. Her hat pin is missing. Is this significant? YES. This will be an important plot point.
Because this was set in a time when EVERYONE put a hat on before they went out the door, this story incorporated plenty of plot points connected to hats. What kind of hat the victim wore, what kind of hat the murderer wore, what kind of hat a suspect wears, a mysterious disappearing / reappearing hat band, PLUS this disappearing / reappearing hat pin are ALL elements of the plot!
One of Miss Withers' students is obsessed with watching the penguin. Except he keeps calling it a duck. It's significant that he goes over to watch the penguin and she goes over to bring him back to the group, because MOMENTS LATER:
SPLASH! A body falls into the penguin pool.
Who is this person? Is he alive or dead? Did he fall or was he pushed? And ... what kind of hat is floating in the pool with him?
Huh. A lawyer just showed up in the nick of time to catch the pretty lady when she fainted. It turns out that the (definitely dead) guy in the penguin pool is her husband.
Well, let's see. The dead guy's wife, the man she was meeting at the aquarium, the aquarium director (who lost money because of some shady investment practices), the pickpocket, plus THIS guy ... yeah, the suspect list is growing by the minute!
Now we're going to take a brief photo interlude to look at a video clip. This is important so that you can see the inspector interviewing the suspects, so you can hear Ms. Withers' amazingly snooty voice, and so you can see her snarky and hilarious rapport with the inspector. Does he like her? Does he respect her? Or ... could there be the beginning of something more? You'll also get to see the catwalk area behind the tanks, and the cop apprehending that "deaf mute" pickpocket who is PROBABLY not using actual sign language!
Oh, and when the inspector says, "Looks like another Snyder-Gray killing to me" he's referring to a famous crime that was front page news just a few years earlier.
Upstairs at the aquarium, debriefing witnesses, James Gleason as cop Piper tangles with Edna May Oliver as the lead, schoolteacher-snoop Mis
Something I don't think I've discussed enough about this movie and others like it is the fact that it's a murder mystery COMEDY, which means that in between pieces of the murder investigation, there are weird and quirky conversations like this:
And now, back to the dramatic lighting, back to the hats, and BACK TO THE MURDER ...
Then Ms. Withers questioned a woman, and their conversation sent me to Google to untangle her old-timey lingo:
"Put the bee on"
Lydia Pinkham
As we near the end of the movie (wow, this is a LOT to pack into one hour and ten minutes!) we've got:
DRAMATIC HEADLINES!
DRAMATIC LIGHTING!
A DRAMATIC HAT BAND DEVELOPMENT (It turned out that the penguin ate it!)
A DRAMATIC PENGUIN!
And finally, AFTER the murder is solved, and no I won't tell you whodunit ...
A DRAMATIC ... PROPOSAL??????
Anyway, if I didn't make it clear, I love this weird funny ridiculous twisty mystery to pieces.
FYI, I *was* going to make this into a longer post (if you can imagine that) incorporating my staycation journey to Castle Clinton in Battery Park so I could see the location of The New York Aquarium back in 1932. But I figure that your eyes and your brain probably need a break right now.
So, if you'd like to see the pictures of Castle Clinton that I took last week (plus a few more screenshots of Penguin Pool Murder, because why the heck not?) then please CLICK HERE!
If you'd like to take a deeper dive (ha!) into Penguin Pool Murder, Hildegarde Withers, and Stuart Palmer, here are some links to explore:
New York Public Library
IMDB
Turner Classic Movies
Pre-Code.com
