Jenny Wren (Karen Morley) is a gold-digger and a blackmailer. Her vocation is having affairs with prominent men and then blackmailing them afterward. Wanting to retire she decides to get one more big score out of each of them and then move out of the country. She takes a trip to the safety deposit box at her bank and then visits the president of the bank, Priam Andes (H. B. Warner). She tells him that she wants him to have a small gathering of people come to his lodge in Crestwood. She names three prominent men, lumber baron, William Jones (Gavin Gordon), Eddie Mack (Richard Gallagher) and Herbert Walcott (Robert McWade), who is running for senator. All day Jenny has been followed by a low-brow private detective, with a gangster past, named Gary Curtis (Ricardo Cortez).
After Jenny gets home from the bank her sister Esther (Anita Louise) arrives with her fiancé Frank Andes (Matty Kemp). Frank is Priam’s nephew, one of the men she has been blackmailing. When Frank and Esther find out that Jenny is going to the Andes ranch in Crestwood he decides to go and take Esther up there as well. Jenny’s maid Carter (Hilda Vaughn) is supposed to go up later.
Not knowing what is to happen Walcott brings his wife (Aileen Pringle) and Will his fiancé Dorothy Mears (Mary Duncan). Priam’s sister Faith (Pauline Frederick) also shows up. Another man shows up for the festivities named Mr. Vayne (Ivan F. Simpson). Priam says he is a friend and wants to meet Jenny, but there is something darker about him. After dinner Jenny gets Priam, Walcott, Jones, and Mack into a room and tells them that she wants a final payment from them, from Jones $50,000, from Mack $25,000, from Priam $100,000 and from Walcott $250,000.
During the night a thunderstorm causes an avalanche that blocks the road leaving the lodge. Curtis and his minions, who followed Jenny up to the lodge, break into the ranch just in time to find Jenny’s dying body. Faith calls the cops to report the murder. The line is cut by one of the henchman. Not being able to leave, and knowing that the police will eventually find a way to get to the lodge, Curtis must try to find the murderer among a house full of people that wanted to see the woman dead before he gets blamed.
“The Phantom of Crestwood” was released in 1932 and was directed by J. Walter Ruben. It is an American pre-code murder mystery and an old dark house movie.
The movie was based on an NBC radio serial “Hollywood on the Air”. The six week serial ended on a cliffhanger. The murder was to be solved in the movie that was produced afterword. Listeners were urged to come up with their own solution to the serial and submit them. It was a contest where people could earn prizes for the best submissions. The serial ran from August through September 1932. The contest closed before the movie was released in October and the winners were to be announced in November 1932. The actual solution to the murders was based on an original story and not any of the submitted solutions. The beginning of the movie is a recap of the contest.
There was actually a lot going on in the movie, and it was actually pretty good. There was a bit of a twist at the end that was interesting. Ricardo Cortez was really good as the gangster turned investigator trying to solve a puzzle that isn’t solvable in the normal sense. There were also some wonderful old dark house elements to add spice to the mix, thunder, torrential rain and a few hidden passages added to the fun.
One of the things the movie is noted for is the flashback technique. The camera appears to spin away from the existing scene and stop at the next as if the camera was moving backward or forward in time. The technique was first done by William K Howard in the film “The Trial of Vivienne Ware” 1932.