Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

Marketic It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Ginger Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

MartinHafer A play is about to have it's opening night when something awful happens....Stanley Vance (Louis Calhern) arrives. It seems that everyone thought he was dead...and hoped this was the case. But this malicious jerk is somehow alive and he's arrived for one reason....to destroy his wife's play until he is paid off to just go away again! It seems that Jessica (Mary Astor) is like a zombie around the Svengali-like Stanley...as if he is exerting some sort of mind control over her...and she seems helpless to stop him from ruining everything. Everyone hates Stanley...everybody. So you assume sooner or later Stanley is going to suffer some 'accident' which will permanently remove this vicious jerk from the picture. But who and how...that is what you'll have to find out when you watch the picture.I really enjoyed watching Louis Calhern. He was delightfully awful...sort of like watching a cat toying with a mouse before ultimately snuffing it. He must have had a great time doing this...and he was excellent. I also loved that this is the sort of film where the audience is pulling for the murder to happen AND for the killer to get away with it...something which helped make "The Suspect" one of the best movies of its day. Overall, a very entertaining film...well acted, well written and very enjoyable.

dt123 The TCM plot description got me to put this this on my DVR, but it was months before I actually sat down to watch it. Totally thought I'd watch a few minutes and move on. But I found myself with a big smile the whole time because it's pretty near perfect - the timing of what we're told, the acting, everything. Not surprised that it's based on a George S. Kaufman play. (Kaufman knows the theater and can be quite clever.) Edward G. Robinson breaks away from his always-EGR persona and Louis Calhern, who plays Stanley Vance is delightfully slimy. The surprises weren't really surprises, but it sure was fun to watch them play out. I wish the reason for Mary Astor's behavior had been hinted at earlier, though, and the print shown on TCM was pretty washed out, but other than that, it's a real keeper. Anyone who likes to watch the tables turned should get a kick out of it!

whpratt1 This 1934 film had a cast of movie legends along with Edward G. Robinson (Damon Welles) who also starred in "The Red House" and hundreds of other films. Mary Astor (Jessica Welles),who starred in "The Maltese Falcon" '41 with Humphrey Bogart. Even Mae Clarke (Daphne Martin) who was on "General Hospital '63 TV Series as Marge. Louis Calhern(Stanley Vance) played a nasty con-artist in this picture and was dispised by everyone, even Damon Welles. Louis Calhern starred in "Asphalt Jungle" 1950 along with Marilyn Monroe and had a long career in the 1920's to late 1960's. In 1934, this was considered a great drama or mystery, unfortunately, the plot was very poor, but the Actors made this a True Film Classic.

Sleepy-17 Great acting from Robinson, and a little over the top, but enjoyably so, from Calhern and Astor. Very stagey, but good setups and moving camera. Beware the plot synopsis in the TV Guide movie database. It seems to describe the ending of the play, but the movie (a censored version?), which played on TCM, has a more ambiguous ending which works better and is more interesting (to me, at least). (Not that I'm for censorship, but sometimes...) Ironically, the play had a happy ending, and that is the one described by TV Guide and Maltin. It's amusing to see when the established references contain reviews that were written by people who had not seen the entire film, and in some cases not at all.