Strangers of the Evening
Strangers of the Evening
NR | 14 May 1932 (USA)
Strangers of the Evening Trailers

Bodies start mysteriously disappearing from the city morgue. An investigator tries to determine what is going on.

Reviews
Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.
Organnall Too much about the plot just didn't add up, the writing was bad, some of the scenes were cringey and awkward,
AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
pointyfilippa The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.
mark.waltz This is a deadly dull thriller about corpses missing from a morgue and the investigation of possible murder of those AWOL stiffs. There's absolutely no action or intrigue concerning who these people are, how they died, and why they are missing in the first place. Pitts plays the girlfriend of one of the suspects (Lucien Littlefield) who is interviewed by the police. Her nervous mannerisms light up the film the minute she steps on screen, and from blinking to stay awake, I went to sudden laughter. Unfortunately, she doesn't come in until half way through the hour long film, and is only on sporadically, her presence the reason I give this a 4 (**) rather than a 1 or 2 (Bomb). Gravely voiced Eugene Palette also adds a little bit of humor, but that's simply because he plays the dumb detective so amusingly.
Chase_Witherspoon This murder mystery cum comedy is seriously hard work to enjoy. Talky and slow moving mystery concerns a couple of bodies turning up at the local morgue, then disappearing, with detectives seemingly bombarded by unusual suspects but no motives. Framed for the murder of one of the corpses, local Doctor (von Eltz) decides to solve the crime himself before he's wrongly arraigned.Zasy Pitts offers comic timing and a familiar hound-dog expression and urban drawl, but even her professional touch can't muster enough spark to light this drab affair. Miriam Seegar is an attractive souther belle with little more to do here than hang like the handbag that adorns her arm and deliver inane dialogue. Warner Richmond also features in a trademark role as the conniving villain.Frequent newspaper inserts substitute for the narrative, while there's the usual silhouettes and shady conspiracies to thicken the plot, alluding to much more than is eventually delivered. There's an amusing punch-up near the end, and the parallel story lines successfully connect at the film's 'all is explained' conclusion, but even at only 65 minutes, it's still a bit of a yawn.
jonfrum2000 I'm a fan of Zasu Pitts, so then this came up on YouTube, I jumped. Zasu doesn't show up until the second half of the film - I call that false advertising. Today's audience should not expect comedy. There are scenes that hint at mild amusement, but don't expect more. It seems as if the writers came up with scenes with comic potential, but didn't know how to pay it off. 1932 was early in the talkie era, and they just hadn't worked out timing yet. There's a lot of the talk-pause acting that made the earliest talkies stiff to later audiences. I just didn't find this movie worth finishing - even when Zasu finally made her entrance.
csteidler Strangers of the Evening features switched corpses, an amnesia victim, estranged family members, and strange doings in the funeral parlor back room. It also contains a hard-to-follow plot involving too many characters, none of whom we get to know well. Even top-billed Zasu Pitts doesn't appear until about the halfway mark, and then in a role that is as minor—yet as important—as everyone else's. Overall, it's an uneven mix of oddities and clichés that leaves one off balance yet with a vague impression of having enjoyed it quite a lot.The dialog is certainly not the star of this picture. Whew! there is some silly stuff here. Take this exchange between Theodore von Eltz as young Dr. Everett and Miriam Seegar as Ruth, the daughter of a murder victim: Dr. Everette: "Please, dear." Ruth: "Oh, don't!" Everette: "Why, Ruth…you believe that I killed him?" Ruth: "Oh, I don't know what to believe." Everette: "Oh, Ruth, dear, you've got to have faith in me." Ruth: "Well, you quarreled." Everette: "But you can't believe that I did it! I don't know what happened, but you must trust me…." And so on.However, that blend of the predictable and the weird is somehow difficult to turn off. Von Eltz is actually quite good in his limited role. Lucien Littlefield is appropriately bizarre as "Snooky," as he's called by Zasu Pitts' Sybil, a sweet loony herself who found Snooky wandering in the street wearing only a raincoat and so took him home and fell in love with him.Zasu sums it up at the end about as well as anyone could: "Oh, Snooky!"