Review of Murder on Lenox Avenue

"Murder on Lenox Avenue" (1941) is a Clayton's murder mystery. In other words, it's the murder mystery you have when you're not having a murder mystery. Not only is there no mystery in the script, there's no murder either. Fortunately, there is a Lenox Avenue, so I guess two out of four correct words in the title is not bad for what was intended as a Poverty Row exploitation picture. The movie's poster promises an "all star colored cast" led by Mamie Smith, Alec Lovejoy, Norman Astwood, Gus Smith, Alberta Perkins and Edna Mae Harris. However, the main characters in the movie are actually played by Gus Smith as Pa Wilkins and Ernie Ransom as Pa's ward, Jim Bracton. The aforesaid poster depicts a beautiful young woman lying on the pavement with a dagger in her heart, although there's no dagger in the screenplay and the episode to which the title vaguely refers is just a minor sub-plot to the main story which involves Pa Wilkins and his daughter (played by Dene Larry) with the Better Business League. The crooked leader of the League, played by Norman Astwood, doesn't intend to take his dismissal lying down. Fortunately, this often tedious plot is interspersed with some lively singing by the likes of Edna Mae Harris, Mamie Smith, Alberta Perkins, Wahneta San, Sidney Easton and Alec Lovejoy.