Roger Blackwood (Edmond Lowe) writes murder mysteries. He also fancies himself as a Sherlockian style amateur sleuth. Andy McCabe (Victor McLaglen) is the house detective at the Medina Hotel, where Roger lives. Roger and Andy get into a discussion about being able to deduce things just by looking at a person. Across the lobby is a young woman. Roger says she had a breakfast date with a relative who is late. They find out that she is Olive Temple (Mary Carlisle) and is indeed waiting for her uncle Dr. John Temple (C. Henry Gordon) who is staying at the hotel.
Wanting to assist they go up to his room to see if he is sleeping off partying the night before. In his room they find a dead man, but it is not her uncle. Later her uncle shows up and says that he traded rooms last night with a man named Chambers. Chambers gave him a story about it being the room he had on his honeymoon. Temple is a toxicologist. He looks at Chambers and determines that the man died of an overdose. Roger sees that Chambers had been using binoculars to surveil an apartment across the street. The apartment belongs to a woman named Eleanor Blake (Rosemary Ames).
The question now is why was Chambers spying on her and was Chambers the intended victim or was it Dr. Temple? Was it even murder or was it suicide? Roger and Andy are just getting started with their investigations. Wanting to be the first to figure everything out they try to one up each other every step of the way. Half the time, they just manage to get in each other’s way. Eventually they end up at the same place, and both wrong.
“The Great Hotel Murder” was released in 1935 and was directed by Eugene Forde. It is a low budget American murder mystery and comedy made by the Fox Film Corporation. It was one of several movies that pit Edmond Lowe and Victor McLaglen against each other as friendly rivals.
The movie started out strong and interesting. The back-and-forth banter between Roger and Andy was amusing. Towards the end it began to get a little confusing. Then things start going into supersonic speed. The ending was very abrupt. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more rushed ending to a film before. Just as the bad guy is discovered the lights go out and he escapes. There’s only eleven seconds left to the movie so what happens next needs to wrap up in eleven seconds. My print may be fifteen seconds short but that still isn’t enough time to have a complete ending to the film. At least not a satisfying one. All in all, the movie was mostly good, but it had too many red herrings and was very rushed at the end.
The film was based on the story “Recipe for Murder” by Vincent Starrett. The story was published in Redbook Magazine. It was then expanded and re-titled. Doubleday included it in their Crime Club series.