Gracie Allen solves yet another murder

 

A few years ago, I reviewed The Gracie Allen Murder Case, in which Gracie (playing herself--or rather playing her usual comedic persona) teams up with Philo Vance to solve a murder. The movie was great fun--a good mystery as well as very funny.

That was in 1938. Four years later, Gracie starred in Mr. and Mrs. North. This is based on a play that in turn was based on the first North novel written by Richard and Francis Lockridge in 1936.

In the novel and the movie (and I assume the play, which I have never seen or read), the Norths are a happily married couple that finds a body in their apartment. Pam North (played by Gracie in the movie) seems a bit ditzy, but she's actually smart as a whip. She demonstrates regularly throughout the North novels, solving many a murder.

Played by Gracie, Pam becomes just plain ditzy. She is good at noticing things, but never completely puts clues together on her own and solves the murder pretty much by accident.

For fans of the novels, this can be a little disappointing. Pam is turned into Gracie Allen, who is again simply playing to the comic persona she and George Burns had perfected on vaudeville and radio.

But taken on its own, the movie is (like the Gracie Allen Murder Case) a lot of fun. It is a good, solid mystery--with the vital clue subtly dropped into the dialogue partway through the movie. The clues at first point to different suspects, including Pam and her husband Jerry, but in the end finger the actual guily party. The supporting cast, most notably Paul Kelly and Millard Mitchell as homicide detectives, are excellent. Tom Conway as a friend of the Norths and another suspect in the crime is also particularly good. 

And its funny. Gracie was a brilliant comedianne and she's a the top of her game here. One can help but wonder what the movie would have been like if George Burns had been cast as Jerry North rather than William Post Jr., but Post handles his straight man duties well. And perhaps George's presence would have made it too much of a Burns/Allen show and distracted from the murder mystery aspect of the story.

And Gracie doesn't hog all the funny bits. Felix Bressart is wonderful as a put-upon Fuller Brush salesman who has important information about the murder. But whenever he walks into a detective's office or the D.A.'s office, they assume he's there to sell them something and immediately throw him out.

So, as an alternate version of Pam North, Gracie does quite well. Here's a clip, but you can currently access the entire move on the Internet Archive HERE.