This little mystery is great fun, and zips along familiar cinematic paths with professional skill, all the Warner technicians called into play to fashion a quickie "B" mystery with some of the best of the character actors around, and one new guy, Turhan Bey, who was still wet behind the ears, but managed to be "clever and cunning" and craftily mysterious.From the opening shots on a foggy wharf, with a mysterious large box hoisted off as ship and into a truck, the extremely mobile camera transports us quickly to an English boarding house crammed with lamps and antimacassars and ferns and portraits and zooms from upstairs to downstairs and in and out of doors as suspects in a crime skulk about and share concerns and accusations with mild hysteria lurking just below their civilized surfaces.But this is not a serious film; it is a fast-paced gem full of strange relationships, a murder or two, folks running about in disguises, and, at last, a clueless police force showing up as things get out of hand, a couple of bodies in locked upstairs rooms. I was never bored, was often amused, had a devil of a time attempting to pin down who-done-it, and much enjoyed the offbeat characters written into the script. Would that much of today's major films had the virtues of succinctness!

Keeping in mind that this movie is totally American and the UK had been at war for quite a while, most people everywhere were looking for something to enjoy and smile about. Those who critique this movie as lacking some action/adventurous mystery just don't understand the feelings and thoughts of the early 1940s when the US would be facing Pearl Harbor in just 9 months from this release. And for the Warner Bros. to send a kind and light-hearted film to the UK when they were facing bombs and death was a good thing. Some of the critiques here went as far as criticizing the actors - all of whom did their jobs very well. But then I'm familiar with those who think they know more than they actually do know. The bumbling police, the silly portrayal of the women were all designed in the story to bring that light-heartiness to the viewer. I'm surprised there wasn't a cute Scottish Terrier running around. So if you like a Light movie without the blood and guts as some people here wished to have seen, this is a pleasant stage play turned into a cute movie for a hour's time.

There are two ways to react to the twist ending of this low-budget thriller. You either love it or hate it. If you're sucker for a roguish surprise -- as I am -- you'll thoroughly enjoy it. At the risk of having to check the "spoiler" box, I will say no more. While the movie was apparently made in Hollywood, the cast is largely British -- Frieda Inescort as the hysterical proprietress of a London B&B, Miles Mander as her hapless husband, Paul Cavanagh as a tenant sweating out delivery of a dangerous package and Heather Angel as Inescort's daughter, smitten with a mysterious writer. Then there's Turhan Bey as a knife-throwing student from the Far East with a dying assassin hidden under his bed. As tenants vanish and dead bodies pile up, the police keep coming up with the wrong answer. But despite the somewhat stolid direction, stick with it. The ending is too much fun to miss. Unless, of course, you're among those who hate it.

This is a stagy film with a group of idiosyncratic characters, roaming around a boarding house. Everyone is a suspect; everyone has some strange being about them. When a man is murdered, a group of buffoonish police infiltrate the house and act like Pirates of Panzance idiots. Don't even try to talk about motivations or realities because you won't find them here. We have, of course, the handsome smug young man who is "writing his play." If this is what he came up with the cop who implies that he has no profession is probably right. The acting is stilted. Some of the characters are strictly comic and there are those long pauses for us to laugh. Whether we should hold this to today's standards or not isn't the issue. There were well-done films in 1941 as well as now. This just lacked pizazz. And the ending is most disappointing.