ChanBot
i must have seen a different film!!
Acensbart
Excellent but underrated film
Kimball
Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.
csteidler
Schoolteacher Edna May Oliver brings her class to the aquarium. A dead man tumbles into the penguin tank before their eyes. The kids vanish, and Oliver spends the rest of the picture teaming up with police detective James Gleason to solve the murder. It's a quick and sometimes hilarious case.Gleason locks up about half of the cast over the course of the film; eventually he's positive he's got the right man and vows to turn in his badge if he's wrong, to which Oliver responds: "If you turned in a badge every time you suspected the wrong person in this case, the department would have to have a special trophy room for them." Gleason is not discouraged ("Don't mind the badge situation, I can take care of that") but he has gradually come to value her ideas and ingenuity.It's a lively partnership between two gruffly charming characters—the two stars are excellent, and are both at their best when on the screen together.A fun supporting cast includes Robert Armstrong as a lawyer who appears somewhat mysteriously; Mae Clark and Donald Cook as attractive young suspects who may or may not fall (or be) in love; the wonderful Clarence Wilson, he of the bald head, mustache, and eternal twitch, as aquarium manager Bertram B. Hemingway; and the great Edgar Kennedy as—naturally—a bewildered cop. (Officer Kennedy is completely bald in this one rather than just on the dome. Odd.) The final minute of the picture is priceless, with Oliver and Gleason watching an exonerated pair of suspects emerge from jail into the courtyard below his office window, and then discussing what's next in their careers. A couple of sequels, thank you!
bkoganbing
When Edna May Oliver took her class on a field trip to the aquarium she and the kids did not realize that they would wind up in the middle of a murder mystery. When young Sidney Miller and Oliver both notice a body in the penguin pool, the game's afoot.The body is that of the late Guy Usher and as in the case of most murder mysteries a lot of people who would like him dead happen to be in the aquarium. Edna has the presence of mind to call the cops and lock the doors so we also have a closed set of suspects.Usher was a stockbroker who lost the money that aquarium director Clarence Wilson took from the budget to play the market with. Usher's wife Mae Clarke and her boyfriend Donald Cook are also there as well as a smooth lawyer in Robert Armstrong and a notorious pickpocket Joe Hannon who is a deaf mute. That does not stop Hannon from making a lucrative living as a dip.The Penguin Pool Murder's biggest asset is the chemistry between polar opposites aristocratic Edna May Oliver and the plebeian police inspector James Gleason who investigates the homicide. As this is the first time these two met, Edna's a suspect briefly as well because her hat pin was part of the crime. But we know it couldn't be here.In fact with the Penguin Pool Murder the guilty party is a rather obvious one. That party is like Clifton Webb in Laura busy trying to pin the crime on Vincent Price. That kind of let's out all the suspense.Still fans of Oliver and Gleason and I do love both will be pleased with Penguin Pool Murder.
lorenellroy
Edna May Oliver plays the gawky ,spinsterish and bespectacled amateur sleuth Hildegarde Withers -the sort of person who always carries a neatly rolled umbrella irrespective of the weather-who teams up with wisecracking policeman Inspector Piper(James Gleason)to solve the murder of Gerald Brooks (Guy Usher).The title derives from the murder location -the Battery Park Acquarium. There is no shortage of suspects-from the Acquarium director (Clarence H Webb)to the ungrieving widow of the deceased (Mae Clark)and one of her lovers (Donald Cook).Together they set a trap to unmask the killer.Oliver and Gleason work well together and they are blessed with a witty script by Willis Goldbeck as well as some pacey direction from George Archainbaud This was the first of a series and is a good example of solid studio professionalism from its era
theowinthrop
Edna Mae Oliver and James Gleason were two of the best character actors in Hollywood in the "golden age" of film making. Oliver always had a precise, aristocratic hauteur (she was Lady Catherine De Burgh in the 1940 PRIDE AND PREJUDICE), but it usually masked an intense intelligence (see how she tears apart Basil Rathbone's Murdstone in David COPPERFIELD), and a decent morality. Gleason is not a university or book based intelligent gent. But he is a street smart type, who knows precisely what's what. And in THE PENGUIN POOL MURDERS they joined together as Hildegarde Withers and Inspector Piper of the New York Police Department. And from rubbing each other the wrong way they become friends, allies in solving the case, and possibly more (the movie suggest at the end).Hildegard is a schoolteacher, who takes her class (a remarkably mixed racial class for 1932) on a field trip to the New York Acquarium, then in lower Manhattan in what is still Castle Clinton National Monument (it was also, in the 1850s, Castle Gardens, where Jenny Lind sang to the public). The visit is interrupted when Isidore (the Jewish kid in the class) points out (as in the summary line) that there is a man inside what he calls the "duck" pool. Actually it is the tank for the penguins.The film follows how Hildegard and Piper pursue their investigations into the murder and gradually find that helping each other makes more sense. The humor builds as both our intrepid detectives confront various types, like humorless, dyspeptic Clarence Wilson as the aquarium director, and relatively stupid policeman Edgar Kennedy to find out what is the truth. It all comes down to a courtroom showdown, where the killer trips himself up in an unexpected manner.A first rate comedy and who-done-it, that led to MURDER AT THE BLACKBOARD and MURDER ON THE HONEYMOON before the two stars went their separate ways.
