Doomed to Die [PG]

After the disastrous burning of a Wentworth ocean liner, Mr Wentworth is shot in his own office. The only suspect is the son of a rival businessman, young Dick Fleming who was the last person to see Wentworth, asking for his daughter’s hand in marriage. Hot headed journalist Bobbie Logan who happens to be a friend of Cynthia Wentworth becomes determined to prove Dick’s innocence and enlists the help of renown detective James Lee Wong to clear Dick’s name and find the real killer. 

All our favourite characters from The Fatal Hour are back and hot on the trail of another murder mystery with Wong setting his keen and penetrating mind to all tests, Bobbie sticking her nose where it would probably be safer to keep it out, and Captain Bill Streets being the stubborn hardboiled police chief that he is. Another fun thriller with intertwining subplots and classic cases of whodunit, Doomed to Die is a decent little movie. 

The real fun of this movie lies in the intertwining and misleading cases of whodunit and the chemistry between all the characters. There are a lot of characters that are all connected to the mystery in some way and this is where all the plot misdirection comes in because really everyone’s got a motive and you go through this movie constantly changing your mind as to who killed Wentworth, trying to riddle it out before Wong does at the end. It may follow a highly recognisable pattern, but you seriously can’t go wrong with the classic whodunit type of murder mystery because, as a viewer, you become emotionally invested and the thrill always comes from your determination to riddle it out before the hero does. 

All our favourite characters are back, as well as a whole lot of new ones and, if anything, they become stronger than before. Whilst I still cannot get passed Boris Karloff as a Chinese detective, his performance as a bit of an homage to Sherlock Holmes still delivers the thrills as well as the humour and it’s fun to watch him just saunter through these highly dangerous situations. The banter and conflict between Bobbie Logan and Captain Streets is elevated here and whilst it does make for some highly entertaining bouts of comedy, you can get sick of it quickly. But, at the end of the day, the entire cast deliver great performances even if they don’t have the biggest part. What I quite like is how each character adheres to their clichés but in subtle ways and thus each character is subtly different even if they look the same on the surface e.g. the shipping magnates and suits. 

Solid use of lighting works to elongate shadows, which makes the mise-en-scene exciting because it just heightens the suspense and anticipation without the aid of crescendo-ing music or anything like that. 

Starring Marjorie Reynolds, Grant Withers, Catherine Craig, Guy Usher, Henry Brandon, Melvin Lang, Wilbur Mack, Kenneth Harlan, and Richard Loo, Doomed to Die is another exciting little thriller in the vein of a Sherlock Holmes mystery. Filled with action, romance, drama, murder, suspense, plot misdirection, and comedy, I found it quite entertaining.