A product of the 1930s, when "old dark House" mysteries were the rage. This is another variation on the theme, with an unusual and disparate cast of characters thrown together by virtue of being passengers on a flight that is forced to land in the desert 300 miles east of Los Angeles. There are the airplane pilots and stewardess, a parson, a Chinese man,a couple about to wed, a professor of mathematics, a boxer, an actress, an elderly lady and one or two more. And, there is an immaculate, uninhabited house in the desert in which they take refuge. After one of the party is murdered, the playing field begins to change, twist and turn with people turning out to be other than they had said. There is no great acting here, but the twists are enough to keep one involved.

A great pulp fiction story from the early 1930's. The sort of movie script that had its origins in the cheap newstand penny-a-word magazines of the day. ("Crime Busters" ..."Hollywood Detective"..."Clues Detective Stories" ..."Thrilling Adventures" ..."Black Mask" ..."Exciting Aviation Adventures" ..."Blue Book.")
However, this movie is to be enjoyed for what it is, not for what it should be.
Remember, this is a very low-budget movie at a time when money was scarce and when talking movies were still finding their way. See if you can spot actors talking into lamps. (Actually, the audio is surprisingly good.)
Don't be appalled by its many inadequacies. The story is a workmanlike rewrite of The Old House, Seven Keys to Baldpate, etc. The director things moving at a fast clip (he might have eliminated some annoying business, especially the almost crazed acting on the part of the actress playing the old lady.) The actors are a mixed lot: some silent-screen performers fortunate enough to have adequate voices for the talkies, but cursed with the melodramatic acting -- arm-waving, meaningful sidelong glances, head-tossing--that silent screen movies demanded (not all, of course: towards the end of the silent movie era, acting becme quite sophisticated and subtle); middle-aged ham actors from fourth-rate Shakespearean repertory companies with stilted deliveries and heavy breathing; attractive rookies without a clue as to how to say a line; vaudeville comics loath to give up their routines.
Given all that, the movie is great. It's fast-moving, at times funny, and quite interesting. It's a look at a world so long ago as to be ancient rather than nostalgic or historical. You'll encounter huge cast-iron ovens...electric generators in private homes... elaborate manners...odd slang and some pre-Production Code cursing...heavy smoking... and awful stereotypes that will make you wince.
The saddest thing is that nobody in the cast really amounted to anything -- no stars in the making here ... just anonymous foot-soldiers in the vast army of unsung actors that have populated the movies and TV (some of the actors in this movie from the early 30's eventually went on to work in early television).
In all, an unpretentious but rewarding picture.

Filled with stereotypes, cliches, platitudes, and old slangy U.S. vernacular expressions not heard anymore, such as 'chief cook and bottle washer', 'grip' (luggage), 'chiseler' (dishonest, a cheat), and 'I'm so hungry, my stomach thinks my throat's cut'. The characters include a criminal attorney whose circumlocutions, hyperbole, and flowery phrases know no bounds; a retired boxer who is glad to be back on the ground, standing on "terra cotta"; a Chinaman who speaks broken and heavily accented, yet very formal English (the formality being his response to the thinly veiled hostility directed toward him); a young actress, the consummate prima donna and narcissistic entitlement princess; and a "granny" who, having seen more of life than the other women, is much more devious than they are. What Bill said about a surfeit of characters, so they relied on stereotypes rather than character development.

Maybe it was because of the cliches and stereotypes that the acting felt somewhat stiff and wooden to me (though some of the cast felt more natural than others), though I've seen a fair amount of stiff acting in the earlier "talkies" when sound was still a new thing in movies. That spoiled my enjoyment more than anything.

HEAR! HEAR! (sp)? BILLBARSTAD!

Sure had me going....

The soundtrack during the credits is a loop, repeating the same airplane sound over and over. That speaks to the film's budget. However, kudos to the sound effects man, who knew that thunder follows lightning.

Granny is played by a woman much younger than the character; she walks and moves like an athlete - suspicious?. The "Yellow Peril" syndrome automatically casts suspicion on our Chinese friend. The "MacGuffin" should be a secret, but lots of people seem to know something about it. It remains a secret how or why the culprit had any knowledge of it. One of many "loose ends." Lavender?!

When this film was made, not all characters had to be evil. If the movie were remade to today's audience expectations, everyone would have a sinister reason revealed for the crimes perpetrated. Enjoy the simpler times. I did.

Bill's review says it all, and I agree.

The characters are interesting. The ensemble cast does well in their roles, and they keep things lively. With so many characters in this fast moving tale, I couldn't think about what I'd seen before there was a new development. A surfeit of characters also meant little character development. What there was, was enjoyable.

There really aren't that many clues, so I went with parlor murder mystery basics. The red herrings are obvious, it's always someone seemingly innocuous, and there's never a major plot twist like a reversal of roles. I was able to winnow down the suspects to two probables, but I had no real feeling for who it was when the murderer/thief was revealed.

Watch this one when you're fully alert. I wasn't, and it lowered my enjoyment. Damn good movie considering that it appears to have been done on a shoestring.

I downloaded the 507MB AVI file. the video quality was fine, but showed little detail. The film had lots of bright white. Lowering the brightness didn't reveal more detail, nothing did, but made viewing easier on my eyes. The audio was fine.