Murder and comedy do mix; We learned that through Philo Vance, Nick and Nora, and various other amateur detectives who sneaked their way into screwball comedy in the 1930's. So in this neat little Universal second feature, there's quite a bit of it around. The opening sequence shows the hateful radio show sponsor Caesar Kluck (a delightfully imperious Breton Churchill) keep putting his foot in it, abusing the staff, sexually harassing pretty Nan Grey and insulting the talent on the show he sponsors. So when he turns up deader than a decapitated chicken, nobody is surprised, but the death at first appears to be from natural causes, not aided along by man. Grey, along with sound engineer Donald Woods, takes charge of exposing the truth which reveals a lot of suspects and some surprising clues. Of course, he gets no help from equally imperious radio station owner Jed Prouty who ironically was nowhere to be seen in the early scenes while Churchill was around. Prouty is very funny in a scene where he tries to keep the press at bay, insisting that there's no poison in the station's air conditioning system while being surrounded by fans, humidifiers and anything else that would remove anything toxic.Moving along briskly with the frenetic surroundings of the radio station creating a lot of normal daily havoc in addition to the two murders which occur, this is a nice little surprise to find amongst the many mediocre low budge murder mysteries of the 1930's and 40's. Woods, a normally dull actor with little pizazz, adds some oomph to his sound engineer, getting in some good cracks at the expense of both Churchill and Prouty. Skeets Gallagher adds his usual plethora of subtle acidic comedy, while many other familiar faces (including a young Lee J. Cobb) pop up as well. There's even a Bing Crosby imitator thrown in for good measure. So while radio means very little to people today without cars, it once was the cheap way of receiving entertainment, and in this case, the Big Broadcast is a great way to spend an hour. You won't feel at all cheated.

In the 1930s and 40s, Hollywood made a ton of B-mystery movies. Some (such as most of the Charlie Chan flicks) were very good--many were, at best average. Among all these movies were also a series of so-called 'Crime Club Films' and "Danger on the Air" is the 4th of 11 in the series. While I haven't seen the others in the series, I'd place "Danger on the Air" in the category of below average--mostly because the premise is 100% illogical.The film is set at a radio station. One of the sponsors, Mr. Cluck (Berton Churchill), is a real jerk. Because of this, you know he'll be the one to be killed--and he soon was. Normally, when a murder is committed you'd contact the police or possibly the District Attorney's office. However, inexplicably, one of the network's radio engineers (Donald Woods) decides to investigate--and no one bothers to contact the police. Even odder, the newspapers hear about it and publish information about the death--yet still no cops appear!! Odder yet, someone tries to shoot a lady (Nan Grey)--yet it is never reported either!! Even more illogical is the very, very, very fanciful and silly means by which the murders were committed--so fanciful that it defied all logic.While the interplay between Woods and Nan Grey is nice, there really isn't a lot to recommend this Universal film. Logical errors abound and the film just made me annoyed that the writing was so sloppy.

With a cast full of familiar faces who have experience in playing sinister and villainous roles it will be hard to pick who did the murder here. In fact during the course Danger On The Air another homicide is committed.Berton Churchill is our victim and the setting is a radio studio. Churchill is once again an unctuous bloviating personality who thinks the world revolves around him and his product. He was killed during a broadcast of his program in a most unique manner which I won't reveal except to say a variation on the method was used in one of the Boris Karloff Mr. Wong movies.The only member of the radio staff who actually stands up to Churchill is sound engineer Donald Woods and its Woods together Nan Grey who solve the mystery. Churchill was not the kind of guy anyone was going to mourn, but the other death is that of the station janitor Lee J. Cobb in an early role for him and it was simply a byproduct of the Churchill homicide.Special attention should be paid to Peter Lind Hayes who plays a young usher at the station who treats us all to a series of imitations of various radio personalities of the day including Bing Crosby, Ben Bernie, and Rudy Vallee and many more. The only hint I'll give you is the eventual killer is not one you would think capable. A good B picture cast gave Universal a good programmer.

This little gem is one of the most well-scripted programmers that I have ever had the pleasure to watch. The acting is great too, and you also manage to work in one of those rare mysteries that makes it hard but fun to guess who the killer is. It's all set at a radio station, where a crotchety old sponsor ends up getting murdered. Donald Woods plays a very intelligent and clever radio engineer and Nan Woods is the ad agency worker who helps him solve the mystery. I know the storyline sounds all old-hat, but I was pleasantly surprised at how refreshing this movie was...a very enjoyable hour!