Murder on a Honeymoon (1935) is the third and last of Edna May Oliver's appearances as spinster detective Hildegarde Withers and it couldn't be more different from the feeble effort which followed it. Capably directed by Lloyd Corrigan (a unique instance of a director who dropped the megaphone and went into screenwriting and an extended career as a character actor) and co-written by Robert Benchley so you know at least there are going to be some good lines in it, it looks like they tried. All pretense at the schoolteacher setting is dropped as Hildegarde is on vacation in California. On a short seaplane hop to Catalina Island, in itself a great way to start a picture, the most irritating passenger sickens and dies. It appears that he was a witness against the mob, and that it was murder, and that Inspector Oscar Piper must hop out from New York to take charge of the investigation. That business out of the way, we may settle down to a fairly pleasant entertainment that keeps one's interest and even has a few mild surprises before it satisfactorily ends.
While the story is adequate it is the sharp dialogue and interaction of Oliver and Gleason that provides the interest here. The RKO studio had a good thing going with these two and it was only because she signed with MGM, probably for more money and less work in classier pictures, that this series didn't peter out at the usual pace for such things. Since I have just viewed the dismal production which followed this, comparisons are inevitable, but the main thing is that in Murder on a Bridle Path it seems like they didn't even bother to try. Here they spent some money on it, with much of the action filmed on location on Catalina Island. Oliver maintains the frumpy sardonic schoolmarm nature of the character as compared to the aging socialite portrayed by Helen Broderick. You can imagine having cocktails in Broderick's apartment but with Oliver a handshake at the door and sincere thanks for a pleasant evening will suffice.
A secondary character in the plot is played by Lola Lane who has a lot of charisma, which makes up to some degree for her lack of subtlety as an actress. It seems as if there were more to her part than appears now, as it's a bit disjointed and meaningless - it never really contributes anything of value to the story. I enjoyed her in
Port of Lost Dreams (1934),
Death from a Distance (1935) and the serial
Burn 'em up Barnes (1935). I bring her up because here is something that maybe you didn't know. In 1938 she appeared as the girl reporter Torchy Blane (usually played by Glenda Farrell) in
Torchy Blane in Panama, inspiring the name and character of girl reporter Lois Lane in Superman comics the following year. So that is where that came from.
It's not the greatest thing you have ever seen by any means, but it is well made, doesn't put you to sleep, and gets a little bit exciting before it ends, and that's all anyone can reasonably expect from this sort of thing. You come away from it saying that wasn't bad at all. Except maybe for the fact that Willie Best was still being billed as Sleep 'n' Eat. That's bad.
