Incannerax What a waste of my time!!!

NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

Teddie Blake The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

JoeB131 Bela Lugosi saw himself as a leading man, and was pretty horrified to be typecast as a horror actor after Dracula.Yet on the rare occasion he got a non-horror role, he really didn't acquit himself very well. This Poverty Row movie was a good example. You can barely understand what he is saying because his accent was so thick. His delivery tended to be monotone.Now, true enough, a lot about this movie didn't help. You had some very bad stereotypes with the black maid and the Chinese houseboy. Most of the other actors were wooden as well.The plot, such as it is, a scientist announces a breakthrough in this new invention called "Television", which was in its infancy in the 1930's. He is killed during a live broadcast, and a police chief investigates through bad editing, disjointed narrative and characters who didn't seem to have a purpose. By the time it was over, you don't care who did it or why, or the odd plot twist of Bela playing a pair of twins.

bsmith5552 "Murder By Television" is neat little murder mystery done on a low budget with some interesting ideas.The plot centers around two competing television systems from James Houghland (Charles Hill Markes) and Dr. Henry Scofield (Huntley Gordon). Arthur Perry (Bela Lugosi) at first refuses to be Scofield's "man on the inside" with Houghland. But then he returns and is ready to accept the bribe.Houghland has arranged a demonstration of his system which is able to transmit images from the four corners of the world. During the demonstration, Houghton suddenly collapses and dies and key documents relating to the system turn up missing.Several suspects turn up and its up to Police Chief Nelson (Henry Mowbray) to sort things out. Perry is a chief suspect especially since he is observed hiding some mysterious documents. Houghland's daughter, June (June Collyer) and her boy friend are under suspicion as well, as Dr. Scofiield. When Perry turns up murdered, everything is thrown into confusion and then...................................................Although the star of this film is Lugosi, and he does OK in a demanding role, the best parts of the film are when the marvelous Hattie McDaniel as the cook and Alleng Jung as the servant are on screen. They add an welcome element of humor to the story.The sequences involving the demonstration of the television system, I found intriguing and strangely prophetic. The pictures are shown on a "big screen" TV not unlike those of today, and the transmissions from all over the world predict satellite TV transmissions of today. Very imaginative for a low budget 1935 mystery.The Charlie Chan series was very popular at this time and this little film follows many of the kind of plot elements of those films...the gathering of all suspects in one room, for example.Interesting and memorable for its depiction, whether accidental or not, of television systems almost 70 years in the future.

John Wayne Peel When one watches an old B movie from one of the poverty row studios, you should go in cutting a little slack. This picture, even with that mea culpa, does not fare well. Bela Lugosi does an excellent job in the acting department, but up against the passionless talking automatons in this turkey, Huntz Hall would come off as Laurence Olivier.The story is simple. Watching a TV broadcast, a man suddenly chokes and dies on camera. (He probably wanted to get out of this waste of celluloid as soon as possible.) Now, the room full of people are all suspects, and the cops close up the house until the crime is solved.Besides moving along so slowly that the hour length seems interminable, this isn't the only sin the producers made on this curio. The usual banter with racial stereotypes is embarrassing to say the least. From the Chinese houseboy who rattles off Charlie Chan and Confucious sayings so badly you can't understand his words half the time, to Hattie McDaniell slipping up and even using proper English for a moment when the writing for her character has the usual "negro" speech patterns, it is a textbook example of how racist a time the 1930s were.It is probably because of bad movies like this that Mr, Lugosi's career went into such a tailspin that eventually took his life. Yet, he does acquit himself nicely in the acting department here playing not only a scientist but his own twin (though the two Belas never share a scene due, I suspect, to a dismally low budget) The fact that the film is so horrendous and wastes a great opportunity to utilize the budding medium of television And even the solution to the mystery is the pits. I won't give a spoiler here, but there IS no way to spoil this ending. It was pitiful - along with the rest of this script.On top of all this, the copies that exist are so bad and have many jump-cuts throughout. A true shame and waste of the legendary Bela Lugosi.Finally, I wonder if this director had much of a career beyond this joke of a studio that most likely was owned by some theater chain (as many such studios did prior to the anti-trust laws.) He probably went into accounting or some other less creative field.

Leslie Howard Adams Which is what comedian Joey Bishop was quoted as saying when informed that Bela Lugosi had died. And Bishop didn't even know Ed Wood was working on Lugosi's comeback film, and Bela was already dead. He also probably didn't even know of Ed Wood.Lugosi also returns from the dead in "Murder By Television." It seems that Professor James Houghland (Charles Hill Mailes), after years of research, has perfected revolutionary improvements in television, but he refuses all offers from companies that want to buy his inventions, and several unscrupulous promoters plan to get them by other means.On the night of the first public demonstration of his inventions, several well-known television experts, excluding David Susskind, are at Houghland's home. The first broadcast is an unqualified success, or at least as much of a success as could be mustered up in a William M. Pizor production. As the second broadcast is about to begin, probably an old British movie featuring a man named Buffy who wants to play tennis, Houghland falls dead, and the police headed by Chief Nelson (Henry Mowbray) arrive, and no one is permitted to leave the house, which is an order not needed as this is a one-set movie and all the actors are on a day-player contract.Several of the guests are suspected: Arthur Perry (Bela Lugosi), Hougland's assistant, because he was out of the room when the lights were turned on after the murder; Donald Jordan (Charles K. French), because he tried to bribe Perry to steal the secret; Richard Grayson (George Meeker), an ambitious, young television engineer, because he had promised to secure the secret for his company, and Dr. Henry Scofield (Huntly Gordon), because he refuses to explain a mysterious telephone call that he made shorty before the murder. Or, since Logosi, French, Gordon and Meeker are all present, the usual list of suspects. But they don't have to be rounded up in this film.Investigation discloses that Houghland's plans have been stolen along with the revolutionary tube that held the secret of the invention. Houghland's Chinese servant/butler Ah Ling (Allen Jung, who was unforgettable as "Big Stoop" in "Terry and the Pirates) accuses Perry of the tube theft. Perry disappears. Perry is found dead, stabbed through the heart by Ah Ling's wooden stake...uh...wooden knife.But, as Joey Bishop said, don't worry he'll be back.