MURDER AT GLEN ATHOL

- The "Crime Club" detective-novel series spawned a film counterpart in 1935, which for the next four years bounced around Hollywood studios. Murder at Glen Athol, based on a novel by Norman Lippincott. Usually cast as an oily villain, John Miljan heads the cast as detective Bill Holt, who has suspects aplenty to choose from when the titular murder takes place. The catalyst for the killing -- and all follow-up killings -- is faithless wife Muriel Randall, an uncharacteristic assignment for brassy blonde character-comedienne Iris Adrian.  

MURDER AT MIDNIGHT

- A sophisticated, expensively-dressed group of people gather in a spooky old mansion to watch the first performance of a play. The highlight of the production is a realistic on-stage murder, wherein the victim is shot point-blank, right through the heart, as the clock strikes 12. The audience applauds enthusiastically as the "victim" falls dead, but the applause subsides and gives way to screams of terror when it turns out that the murder is for real! With everyone in the mansion under suspicion -- including, naturally, the butler -- the cops are baffled, and even more so when the primary suspect ends up as victim number two. "This isn't a murder case, it's an epidemic!" moans one of the detectives. Intricately plotted, and with a genuinely surprising solution, Murder at Midnight is far and away superior to your average low-budget mystery.