It runs a little too long (even at just 74 minutes), Bruce Cabot is a tad colorless in the lead and Margaret Lindsay is not really allowed to be her usual perky self (logically, since members of her family keep dropping like flies), but "Sinner Take All" is still a fairly good murder mystery, with a strong finish (the film tricks the viewer by having the hero be wrong about the culprit, and the motive is well-hidden in plain view in one or two seemingly throwaway scenes), a memorably violent death scene, and some interesting supporting characters, like a cop who is smarter than he looks. By the way, has there ever been a 1930s mystery without a nightclub owned by an ex-gangster who wants to go straight? **1/2 out of 4.

There are several things to dislike about "Sinner Take All", a 1936 mystery movie from MGM. The main problem is the hard-to-swallow screenplay, in which the hero is an average-guy reporter who also works for a lawyer with a British accent, who represents the rich guy who owns the newspaper, who has three dissolute children with motives to kill him to inherit his money and there are several killings that take place in the family. Got that so far?Anyway, the reporter-lawyer liaison (Bruce Cabot) decides to solve the whole mess and falls in love with the rich guy's daughter (Margaret Lindsay) and tries to prevent her from getting killed. Loads of suspects in the miscast cast, several of whose characters are insufficiently developed to be legitimate suspects. The deus ex machina is really off the wall - of course, the murderer is impossible to determine until the whole surreal plot comes to a head in the last scene.Very unsatisfactory murder mystery with a slapped-together cast and implausible story. I rate it a five because there are mystery fans who will marvel at the cleverness of disguising the murderer, but I felt the movie does not play fair in this regard.

The strangely titled Sinner Take All is a superior second feature that benefits from a good screenplay, excellent MGM production values, and a fine cast. Director Errol Taggart (who spent the early years of his career editing some of Tod Browning's best Lon Chaney silents, and also got second unit credit on 1932's Freaks) displays some talent with the camera, and there is excellent use of lighting, perspective, and montage thanks to cinematographer Leonard Smith. Also of note are the performances of Bruce Cabot as the hotshot reporter-lawyer on the trail of a serial killer and, of course, George Zucco, whose performance here surely anticipates the advent of C. Montgomery Burns ("EX-cellent!").

Good murder story in this little programmer helped immensely by breezy performances by Bruce Cabot (always underrated) and Margaret Lindsay. Cabot plays a former reported who has become a lawyer. But the man he works for (Charley Grapewin) also owns the newspapers so when his family starts receiving threatening notes, he's put back on the job as a reporter. As the family members starts getting knocked off in gruesome "accidents," Cabot digs deeper into the lives of the rich. It's one of those murder mysteries where EVERYONE is a suspect. Nicely done film.Cabot had his biggest success in King Kong but was never able to follow up with anything important. Same with Lindsay; she was around for years as leads in B films and second leads (Jezebel) in big films. Both are attractive and fun to watch.Sinner Takes All also has a few familiar faces including Joseph Calleia as the nightclub owner, Stanley Ridges as the editor, Vivienne Osborne as his wife, Dorothy Kilgallen as a news hen; Harry Holman as a cop, George Zucco as Bascombe, and Jonathan Hale as the doctor.And yes that's the same Dorothy Kilgallen who was a panelist on What's My Line and who died mysteriously after announcing she had discovered something about the Kennedy assassination.