Richard Lang (Phillips Smalley) is a rich business man. His wife (Lillian West) has been spending a lot of time and money on a phony Psychic named Swami Yomurda (Mischa Auer). His daughter Betty (Gertrude Messinger) is in love with a former gangster named Nick Genna (Louis Natheaux). His house is overrun with friends of his daughter and various other hangers on. Even his butler Monroe (Fletcher Norton) is a little shady. He used to be Lefty Louis from the North side gang. A gang that Nick use to run. Lang complains to his friend and former attorney, Judge David McLeod (Crauford Kent) and promises an end to all the parasites invading his home and conning his family.
Lang’s wife has invited Swami Yomurda to the house to perform a séance and the promise of a fat check. A group of people are invited to participate in the séance. In addition to Mrs. Lang, Betty, Nick, and the Judge are Lang’s former business partner, John Frazer (Lloyd Ingraham), Frazer’s wife Ruth (Phyllis Barrington), Lang’s secretary Mary Browne (Bess Flowers), Lang’s son Tommy (Russ Coller), and a neighbor, Vivian Rogers (Helen Foster). Ten people of various backgrounds.
Everyone gathers in the living room. The Swami instructs Monroe to turn out the lights. In the dark a muffled cry is heard and a thump. When the lights come back on Lang is dead on the floor. He’d been stabbed. Judge McLeod orders everyone to stay where they are and calls the police. Detective Captain Herbert Devlin (Jack Mulhall) shows up with an entourage of cops and detectives.
Devlin seals off the house and questions each suspect. He learns that most of those present had a reason to kill Lang. Before Devlin can process all the information, another murder happens. The only thing left to do is to gather the suspects together in a room and accuse each one until someone confesses.
“Sinister Hands” was released in 1932 and was directed by Armand Schaefer. It is a pre-code early talkie murder mystery and a poverty row film. The movie was based on a story called “The Séance Mystery” by Norton S. Parker.
For the most part the film is your basic low budget thirties style who-done-it. Movies with séances in them were all the rage in the thirties. I would have like some good spooky séance stuff but the murder happened as soon as it started. Although the magic slate trick the Swami had was cool. There were lots of suspects with some decent motives but no one in particular was singled out as a red herring. It’s not a bad little movie, a little creaky but fun.
Comic relief is played by James P. Burtis as Captain Devlin’s sidekick Detective Watkins. Watkins, whom Devlin insists on calling Watson, is far too stupid to be a police detective. Jack Mulhall, who played the dogged police Captain Herbert Devlin, was in hundreds of movies and television shows during his career. He started acting in 1910 during the silent era and continued working until his last role as Justin Murdock in “The Atomic Submarine” 1959.