blanche-2 Two things make Murder! interesting before one even sees it - it's early Hitchcock and the film is 87 years old!It's not your typical Hitchcock story. A famous actor (Herbert Marshall) sits on a jury that convicts a young actress, Diana (Norah Baring) of murder, but he's haunted by the verdict. He had an encounter with this woman some time before and suggested she gain experience by "working in the provinces." He now feels slightly responsible, as she is accused of murdering a young female costar.Enlisting the help of a married couple in the company, he sets out to find out what really happened.Marshall is young and attractive, and Esme Percy as Handel Fane is very memorable. A distinguished stage actor, he actually studied with Sarah Bernhardt, and roles were written for him by Bernard Shaw. His style and look are unusual.This was filmed in a precise manner - the camera focusing on doorways, going along the floor where the murder took place and showing the bloody poker.The climax of the film is pure Hitchcock and astounding. Well worth sitting through this early movie. Hitchcock always is.

trimmerb1234 I remember seeing Hitchcock's last picture: "Frenzy" and wondering what the fuss had been about him - it was tired, rather ugly and uninspired. "Murder" in contrast - his first talkie - is so fresh. Nobody seems to notice what a visually unusual British film this isIt starts with a very obvious model of a village street but the houses are unlike any British houses - they look alien - slightly gnomish, all looking as if made of mud. And the odd lighting - very contrasty and coming upwards at an angle from ground level. Curious at this I checked and found: "In 1924, Alfred Hitchcock was sent by Gainsborough Pictures to work as an assistant director and art director at the UFA Babelsberg Studios in Berlin on the film The Blackguard. The immediate effect of the working environment in Germany can be seen in his expressionistic set designs for that film. Hitchcock later said, "I...acquired a strong German influence by working at the UFA studios (in) Berlin" (Wikipedia)And Hitchcock's trade-mark rather schoolboyish grubby sense of humour which disappeared after he went to Hollywood is in evidence: the camera lingers while a woman struggles to put on her lingerie under her night-dress, lingering unduly as one woman totters as she puts both feet down a single leg of one garment. The Young Master had made his unmistakable mark after scarcely 5 minutes running time. A cheekily amusing camera's eye but not one which would I think ever again be seen in a British film. Well hardly ever. Robert Donat's inconvenient hand-cuff, 9 years later, would oblige him to intimately assist young Madeline Carole to put on her stockings.The following scene has two women - one late middle age, the other young and excited, gossip as the older makes tea in the kitchen. As they gossip the two cross the kitchen backwards and forwards, and 7 times the camera crabs to follow them; 6 times the younger one sits down and gets up. I laughed out loud - it was so true to life. And the dialogue (they were gossiping about the murdered girl) "What kind of tea do you use?". So true to the character - so inspired as bit of writing.Hitchcock so clearly has a vitality, inventiveness and sharply observant eye in this film that he progressively lost as budgets and his fame grew. Production values sky-rocketed, the biggest names starred, the plots became more convoluted and stories moved towards pointless horror as he came to cultivate notoriety with Psycho and finally Frenzy. There is so much originality in this film.Were the next 40 years a slow using up of that original creativity and fun?

calvinnme This is not your typical Hitchcock of later years as this is a straight up murder mystery. There is no elaborate plot. The police find Diana Baring, an actress in a troupe, in shock, covered in blood, and next to the body of her friend and next to the poker that killed her. All during her trial she says that she does not remember killing the woman but she is sure she did not drink the brandy in a glass nearby. Sir John Menier, who was on the jury that convicted her and an actor himself, is shaving and looking in the mirror after the trial when this one fact hits him. Why would she be so sure of not drinking the brandy but claim she could not remember if she did the killing? Was this the act of a guilty woman? Thus Sir John, played energetically and cleverly by Herbert Marshall, is out to find who did kill her. This is a well done scene in and of itself, as Marshall is shaving and we hear his thoughts in a voice-over. Remember, at the time, many films were still using title cards to change scenes! Sir John is going to need the help of the acting troupe to solve this case. Thus he gets some of the members to help him by promising them jobs in his production company, which is a huge step up for them, before asking them for his help in clearing Diana. The rest of the film plays out like a police procedural, and although the British never had a formal production code like there was in America, Hitchcock does remove the reference to homosexuality in the film versus the play upon which the film was based.I found the film rather slow paced, but the camera-work is interesting. When one couple in the theatre troupe gets the word that Sir John wants to see them, you see close ups of shoes being shined, stockings being put on, hair being combed, but they are all shots so close you only see the actions themselves. Prior to this you see the couple living in drab surroundings just to get an idea that life has been a struggle for them and that their child seems more like a lively nuisance than their pride and joy. There are close ups of unpaid bills on the mantle as their daughter clangs annoyingly on their piano. There is a rather surreal shot when they enter Sir John's office. The man's legs sink into Sir John's carpet so that his feet are swallowed up. This is never explained, so I am assuming it is just to show the elegance and awe the man ascribes to Sir John right down to the depth of his rug.There are odd experimental shots like this all through the film, and Herbert Marshall's presence absolutely carries the entire production on the acting side. The film suffers due to uneven and often muffled sound which was just a problem that the early talkies shared, along with having long-winded spells of being too talkie and no scoring unless something important happens and the score comes blasting out of nowhere. I'd recommend it just because it is early Hitchcock and so unlike anything he did past 1940.

vincentlynch-moonoi ...at least for American audiences. First, between the primitive state of sound recording in 1930 and the heavy British accents here (not to mention a couple of scenes where the background music drowns out the speech), I found it difficult to catch some of the dialog...and, hence, some of the story line. Second, like many British films, I found the story to move along dreadfully slowly in some scenes.However, it is nice to see some early British Hitchcock, and to then realize how quickly film-making in general, and his film-making evolved shortly after that.I watched this film primarily because the primary star is Herbert Marshall, long a favorite of mine...though he has been somewhat forgotten to history. This was only his third film. And, it is Marshall that makes the film worth watching. What I mean by that is that the first section of the film -- where we learn about the murder -- is poorly and primitively done. It's not until the jury deliberation segment that the film becomes a bit sophisticated, and the first impressive acting we see is by Marshall at the end of the deliberation segment (his first spoken part in the film) and, a short time later as he is shaving. Now that's acting! Everything else to that point has just been people saying lines in rather immature depictions of minor characters...although even the female lead (Norah Baring) is a pretty poor actress with a horrid voice for films. And, unfortunately, the next segment, where Marshall has a chat and dinner with two people from the theatre group from which the accused murderess worked, the dialog is clumsy and awkward. This seems to happen throughout the film...a few pretty good scenes mixed in with some pretty bad scenes.I don't know much about 1920s England, but egads, the settings (whether houses or court rooms or prisons) seem downright primitive. And why are several of the women who clearly live in minimal standards wearing fur coats? There really is only one segment worth of Hitchcock -- the climax. You watch, knowing exactly what the character will do...although he doesn't do exactly what you think he will...but accomplishes the same thing. It's a suspense building scene, nonetheless, and the faces of the crowd are quite impressively done.So, what's the bottom line? If Alfred Hitchcock's eventual career had depended on this film, in my view none of us would have ever heard of Alfred Hitchcock. This isn't the first 1930 film I ever watched...but it's probably the worst. There are only two reasons to watch it -- to see what early Hitchcock was like, or because you admire Herbert Marshall. Otherwise, give it a wise berth.