A Shriek in the Night (1933)

A Shriek in the Night (1933)

    A Shriek in the Night starts off strong with a crash test dummy being thrown off a roof. It's supposed to be some chump plummeting to his death, but the special effects look about as real as your Game of Thrones cosplay.

I am Kyle the Yellow, sworn knight to Beerion Lannister and rightful heir to the porcelain throne.

    This senseless waste of a perfectly good department store mannequin is about the most terrifying thing that happens in the movie. After that, it's more of a hard boiled detective story than a horror flick. The plot revolves around a female reporter (Ginger Rogers) covering a series of murders in her apartment building. There are a couple detectives involved in the plot and they use the classic buddy cop dynamic of cigar puffing jackass and gay version of Mr. Magoo. Needless to say, that duo isn't going to solve the crime without help.

    Naturally, Ginger Rogers steps in to close the case. Now, if you're anything like me you are probably wondering a couple things. First, who the hell names their kid Ginger? The answer, someone who hates their child for stealing their youth. Second, Ginger Rogers sounds kinda familiar, what else has she been in? The answer, a whole bunch of stuff. Ginger Roger was sort of like the 1930's Katherine Heigl. 

    There's just one small difference between Rogers and Heigl . . . every one of Ginger Roger's movies sounds like a porno. Here's a short list:

Swing Time

The Gay Divorcee

The Gold Diggers of 1933

Once Upon a Honeymoon

Monkey Business

Weekend at the Waldorf

Tom, Dick, and Harry

5th Ave Girl

We're Not Married!

Oh, Men! Oh, Women!

You Said a Mouthful?

Tight Spot

Lady in the Dark

Perfect Strangers

Lucky Partners

Two Flappers, One Bootleg Cup

    I could go on, but I think you got the point. And, believe it or not, I only made up one of those titles from comic effect.

By the way, Rogers won an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1940 for Kitty Foyle. Mark this blog down as fun and educational!

    But going back to Shriek in the Night . . . Perhaps the film's best feature is the abundance of 1930's catchphrases. The dialog is rife with exchanges like:

 "that reporter pinched my story! So I told him to go soak his head. So he told me that my mother sucked eggs, and I told him 'say that again and I'll butter your necktie, bub!'"

    I'm not sure exactly what it means to "butter a necktie," but it sounds like it would leave a stain at the very least. Also it was the 1930's. They didn't know about trans-fats then, so why not butter a necktie? You butter everything else. 

 
    There was one phrase I actually had to rewind and write down. It was simply too absurd not to. I dare you to make sense of this shit. I dare you! Here goes:

  This is what cigar-puffing detective says to Ginger Rogers.

    "I got four kids and a wife who could lick her weight in wild cats."

    Lick her weight . . . in wild cats

I just . . . I can't even . . . 

    I really wanted to make a joke about this phrase, but I can't even do it. I mean, what the hell does that even mean?! Did the 1930's have some sort of secret counterculture that revolved around wild cats? How many wild cats does it take to equal the weight of his wife? And how did he come by this information? Is it just a reference to some run-of-the-mill wildcat fetish? I guess we'll never know.
 
    What I do know is that Ginger Rogers is fun to watch. She has charisma. Whether she's tampering with evidence, stealing scotch from a dead man's apartment, or just passing out in the boiler room; she's got a magnetism that makes us root for her, even if it is just a half-assed detective story.