Plantiana Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

MamaGravity good back-story, and good acting

Livestonth I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Calum Hutton It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

kapelusznik18 ***SPOILERS*** Hair or feathered brained whodunit where a missing blackbird or raven is the main witness to a murder that the independent candidate running for mayor John M. Rhodes, Gene Lockhart, has been accused of. It's up to private dick D.I Trees, Jerome Cowan, or the California Redwood Family to save Rhodes' political career as well as neck in tracking down the missing bird. That's after the bird's owner Fred Molner was found murdered in his apartment by Trees with his assistant Ray Hickey knocked out cold in the kitchen. There's also the fact that $30,000.00 in cash in found in a cigar box that Molner has collect from his clients as a bookie that he was holding back on them! Could one of them have murdered him but was unable to find the cash before Trees came on the scene? Long winded for a short-55 minutes- movie we have a number of clues to not only Molar's murder but who's behind the scenes in trying to sabotage Rhodes run for major. It was Molner who was at first blackmailing Rhodes in threatening to reveal that his bride to be's brother was a jail-bird in San Quentin instead of being a door to door salesman of totalities for the last three years. And the fact that Rhodes admittedly being at the scene of the murder didn't help his case either!****SPOILERS****It's at the end that the truth is finally found out to who killed Molner to anyone, on the screen or watching the movie, who's still interested which is reviled by the mysterious black bird who in fact wasn't even a witness to the murder in the first place! The bird was just programmed to blurt out the killer's name and what he did before he did it which would make it totally inadmissible in any court of law in the US or anywhere else on earth! As for the bird itself were soon to find out that it doesn't talk at all with what turned out to be ventriloquist Hickey doing all the talking for it!

mark.waltz Find the crow, and you find the blackmailer. That's basically what portly mayor Gene Lockhart tells private investigator Jerome Cowan. Poor Cowan only got the job because he's the least known private detective in the city, and that joke sets them theme for the style of this tongue-in-cheek murder mystery where all sorts of shady characters come in and out, all looking for the mysterious black bird that holds the secret, not the stuff that dreams are made of. Cowan and secretary Faye Emerson, down to no cases, are thrilled for just one chance, especially since solving this crime could open all sorts of doors. It's an entertaining, extremely fast moving Warner Brothers second feature with witty lines, a few red herrings and just an all round fun atmosphere that proved in movies, sometimes less was more.Lockhart made a career out of playing pompous asses, and obviously knowing that his look archetyped this character, played them to the hilt. Here, he's not quite as pompous, although his initial speech on the radio makes him appear that way. He knows he's in over his head, and if he has any chance of winning re-election, that darn crow must be found. The presence of Bradley Page (one of the screen's most darkest of shady villains) gives an obvious suspect to the dirty goings on, but in only 55 minutes, a ton of other characters are introduced as possibilities. The whereabouts of the actual crow (who ironically sounds like a parrot) is amusing as well. Fun, quick and done, you may not find the revelation of the blackmailer a big surprise, but you'll have a fun time getting there.

JLRMovieReviews Politician Gene Lockhart is being blackmailed, so he enlists the help of the most unknown detective (to keep it quiet and out of the news) to get him out of the scrape. Enter Jerome Cowan (Bogart's murdered partner in "The Maltese Falcon"), who has a very likable disposition as a unscrupulous and somewhat sleazy detective. It seems they need a crow that repeats what it hears and it heard the last words of a murdered man, implicating Gene Lockhart. Through a series of twists and turns and interrogations of suspects and run-ins with hoodlums, Jerome tries to get at the truth. What begins very pleasantly and simply turns very complicated quickly with some zippy and witty one-liners. This film was in fact very funny, and by the end I think you'll feel thoroughly satisfied. There's even a twist that you don't see coming. Or do you? Whatever the means to get his man, Jerome Cowan as D.L. Trees earns his money and gives you a good time for a little over an hour. Good job, big guy!

dbborroughs A detective is hired to find the blackmailer of a candidate for mayor. The blackmailer knows that the mayors fiancé is an ex-con. When the blackmailer turns up dead things become a desperate hunt for a crow that can talk.Okay, desperate is too strong a term, pastorally paced jaunt. This is stock characters going through the paces of a not particularly tense mystery (and I use the term mystery very loosely). This is little more than the characters thrashing around for an hour or so while time runs out. I'm sure this played better in the original short story because I can't imagine this nonsense being intentionally used as the basis of a film.The fact its a non-mystery doesn't prevent it from being entertaining. We watch the film because the actors make their characters engaging enough that we want to spend time with them. Honestly had their actually been a real mystery this would have been a great film simply because the cast is so good.Worth a look, especially since its part of a Warner Archive release with 6 films.