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Grief Street (1931)
Grief Street is About the Right Title For the Effect This Picture Had on Me
This, my dear readers, is about one of the worst movies I have ever seen, and I've been watching them for over forty years. Director Richard Thorpe is a well-known name because he later went to MGM and directed the likes of Elvis Presley in Jailhouse Rock, and anyone who can get Presley to say "Those ain't tactics, honey, it's just the beast in me," without bursting into laughter has to be a director who can handle the very worst of actors, right? Well, Grief Street is full of the very worst actors who called Hollywood home. The guy playing Sgt. Jardine (James P. Burtis) seems to be well oiled throughout the entire picture.
This is a murder mystery of the old school, concerning a journalist who seems to want to solve a crime before the police do. And the police let him. Sound believable so far? An actor whom everybody wants dead is murdered in his dressing room and there are about half a dozen potential suspects. Even the doorman, who is sat right outside the actor's room, doesn't see anybody going in, other than the actor himself. How does that work? Well, our journalist friend, Jim Ryan, sets about solving the case so the police don't have to. Furthermore, because the running time of the film is mercifully short, Ryan has to make a rather tenuous link in order to realise suddenly who the killer is.
If watching absolute crud is your thing, you're going to love Grief Street. If watching a group of actors destroy a script makes you weep, then perhaps you ought to give Grief Street a body swerve and find something that is acted...I was trying to find a synonym for acted well, but really you might want to find a picture that is just acted, that would be a start. x