Mystery of Edwin Drood *** (1935, Claude Rains, Douglass Montgomery, Heather Angel, David Manners, E E Clive, Valerie Hobson, Francis L Sullivan) – Classic Movie Review 10,409

Director Stuart Walker’s 1935 Universal studios black and white film Mystery of Edwin Drood is a pleasing, atmospheric, satisfying Victorian England period chiller, successfully based on Charles Dickens’s uncompleted 1870 novel, with Claude Rains enjoying a field day as the opium-taking choirmaster John Jasper who kills his nephew Edwin Drood (David Manners) in a fit of jealous rage over love for a young woman, the nephew’s fiancée Rosa Bud (Heather Angel).

Douglass Montgomery is just right as Neville Landless, the fall guy for the murder, and E E Clive as Mayor Thomas Sapsea, Valerie Hobson as Helena Landless and Francis L Sullivan as the Rev Mr Septimus Crisparkle are other essential cast members.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood became a Broadway and West End musical in the 1980s it was remade in 1993 as The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Other versions are The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1914), The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1960) (TV Mini-Series), and The Mystery of Edwin Drood (2012) (TV Mini-Series).

Also in the cast are Walter Kingsford, Veda Buckland [Vera Buckland], Forrester Harvey, Louise Carter, Ethel Griffies, Zeffie Tilbury, Elsa Buchanan, George Ernest and J M Kerrigan [Joseph M Kerrigan].

The effective screenplay is by John L Balderston, Gladys Unger, Bradley King and Leopold Atlas.

It is a fine, costly production ($215,375), and has the right decadent look about it in George Robinson’s cinematography and Albert S D’Agostino’s set designs, while Edward Ward provides a good score. The large set built for it in Universal’s back lot was their biggest since the 1923 The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

It was Manners’s last film. He recalled: ‘It was not a good movie at all.’

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,409

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Douglass Montgomery, Claude Rains and David Manners in Mystery of Edwin Drood.