My opinion is almost certainly influenced by the picture and especially the sound quality of the DVD print I saw (let's just say that at least 30% of the dialogue is hard to hear), but although I'm a big fan of this genre, I didn't really care for this movie. Many of the characters are quite hard to tell apart, and it doesn't help that they're played by a cast of complete strangers to all but the most fanatic early-1930s film buffs. To be honest, the only member of the cast I recognized was Lola Lane, who plays the stereotypical "nosy" reporter; though you can see sparks of the "Torchy Blane" personality (whom Lane actually played once herself a few years later), her character remains clueless throughout the film as the male detective figures out everything about the case. All in all, "Death From A Distance" is a long, dull 70 minutes. *1/2 out of 4.
Review of Death from a Distance
