User Reviews

Adolphe Menjou was perfect as the well dressed detective about town, Thatcher Colt in "The Circus Queen Murder" (1933) (there was also an earlier one, "Night Club Lady" (1932)). Unfortunately, that was it until PRC resurrected the elegant detective in an unusually good "who done it" (for them!!!) with the debonair Sidney Blackmer. PRC may have had the reputation as the cheapest of the cheap but it did produce the occasional interesting movie ie "Baby Face Morgan", "Strange Illusion" and "The Mask of Diijon", even the very intriguingly titled "I Ring Doorbells"!!

A man is picked up acting suspiciously in a cemetery, he claims he was delivering a $1,000 as per instructions. When he is taken to the police station it seems he is not the only recipient of a black mail letter - from the Black Panther!!! They are all connected with an opera company and have all had trouble with a bombastic baritone named Lombardi - prima donna Nina Politza has been pestered by him so much she books a ticket to South America!!

Oddly, all fingers point to Mr. Digberry!! Yes, it's Byron Foulger!! At his best playing "nervous nelly" characters and I must admit I have never seen him play such a large part before. His nervous librarian in "Quiet Please, Murder" (Sidney Blackmer was also in that) is more what I am used to. He is in the same vein as Johnny Arthur - he even bears a resemblance to him as well!! Having the movie revolve around Foulger added to the suspense - he does have a portable typewriter with a dodgy H and the policeman sees a cat in the flat that could have been used to make the Panther's mark!! The police think he is the blackmailing mastermind who has sent himself a letter to appear like a victim - and the surprise of the movie is that they are right as Mr. Digberry confesses!! He did write the letters so he could use the excuse when his wife found out there was $1,000 missing from their bank account!! He gave the money to Nina, who wasn't as wealthy as everyone believed but when she turns up dead - he doesn't have a very good explanation!!

Sidney Blackmer bought polish and class to Thatcher Colt, it is just a pity he was relegated to the sidelines while Foulger took centre stage. And according to literary descriptions, Blackmer was Colt to a T, even though in this movie his lip reading technique, which made the character stand out is not used. Unfortunately, his offsider, instead of being the beautiful and efficient Miss Kelly, was crusty D.A. Bill Dougherty (Herbert Rawlinson).

Recommended.

Producers Releasing Corporation was known for it's cheap sets and low production values; "The Panther's Claw" probably falls in the middle tier of their low budget offerings. What I found most amusing about this picture is the choice of it's title, purporting to be some great mystery a la the symbolism of a sleek black cat. Instead, the panther's claw belongs to a common house cat named Gomer, and when all is said and done, the 'claw' becomes virtually a throw away in the solving of the murder mystery at the center of the story. In fact, Gomer doesn't even show up for the end of the picture, his purpose having been served about mid way through.

The story itself is actually decent enough, with Sidney Blackmer in the role of Police Commissioner Thatcher Colt. His character might have been Charlie Chan, Mr. Wong or Bulldog Drummond in any of those detective flicks from the same era, and he acquits himself rather well via a low key manner and methodical police work. He manages to fend off the aggressive D.A. who wants to arrest an innocent man in the murder of a famous opera star, thereby clearing a milquetoast of a man named Digberry (Byron Foulger), who's been implicated in the murder by coincidence and a rather elaborate frame up. You never get the impression that Digberry might be a legitimate suspect, with an early hint offered by a Digberry lookalike who slinks around the corridors of his apartment without showing his face. Like the Charlie Chan films, this one offers a red herring or two to keep the viewer guessing, and the murderer could actually have been any of them depending on the script writer.

The opening credits dedicate the picture to the members of the New York City Police Department, and on that score it was a reasonable tribute. There was a fair amount of detective work that went into the solving of the crime on the part of Commissioner Colt, and a lot of information was packed into the seventy minute run time. This was the first picture I watched out of a two hundred fifty movie DVD set I picked up quite reasonably from Mill Creek Entertainment as part of their Mystery Collection, and it wasn't a bad way to get started. Only two hundred forty nine more to go.

The misleading title features no panther (pink or otherwise), only the cute kitty-cat of milquetoast Byron Foulger accused of murdering an aging opera star. There are plenty of other suspects, but circumstances point to him, having himself set up a fake blackmail scheme to fool his (unseen) wife in regards to their joint bank account. He is first seen at his mother's grave, staring at her stone with a hysterical limerick written on it. There really isn't much plot, but it's pretty entertaining with Sidney Blackmer as the main cop on the case and some confusion concerning Foulger's constant disappearance and sudden reappearance which make his comings and goings seem suspicious. PRC has had some pretty rare classics (or pretty rotten cinema) and shouldn't be taken for art. But if you compare these low-budget films to early television dramas, you'll find them to be compact entertainment, worthy of non-pretentious storytelling and not overloaded with frills that sometimes are out of place.