Based on: The Death Kiss by Madelon St. Dennis (1932) Studio: K.B.S. Productions/Tiffany Pictures

When actor Myles Brent is shot dead while filming a death scene for a movie called The Death Kiss, the studio wants to call it an accident. But screenwriter Franklyn Drew (David Manners) turns amateur detective to clear his girlfriend's name, with bumbling help from studio cop Officer Gulliver.

This adaptation essentially throws out Madelon St. Dennis's novel about a strangling caught on newsreel, keeping only the title. The original featured Inspector Fisk and Sidney Traherne investigating a murder caught on newsreel footage—here we get a completely different, studio-set mystery.

The draw is supposed to be seeing Lugosi, Manners, and Van Sloan reunited just one year after Dracula, though Lugosi is criminally underused as a red herring studio manager. Director Edwin L. Marin (his debut!) shows surprising visual flair with swooping camera movements and hand-tinted color for the climactic shootout—innovations you wouldn't expect from poverty row.

A fascinating artifact of Depression-era filmmaking—when even B-pictures could innovate and an author's name could sell tickets even if you junked her entire story.

But don't watch any of the public domain versions available on Youtube or Amazon Prime. The print quality is nearly unwatchable. If you're going to seek this one out, get ahold of the Library of Congress restoration, available on Kanopy and Kino Lorber blu-ray, which retains the hand-painted color sequences.

IN THE DATABASE: Part of Hollywood's ongoing fascination with mystery adaptations from women writers, though this takes the most liberties with its source of any I've seen. Studios clearly valued these authors' names more than their actual plots!

Part of Her Hollywood Story, a database documenting more than 1,125 films adapted from American women writers, 1910-1963. Explore the full database at herhollywoodstory.com.

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