Murder by Invitation (1941)

Written by CinemaSerf on June 25, 2022

This is quite an enjoyable little game of cinematic Cluedo as a bunch of avaricious relatives take their their rich old aunt "Cassie" (Sarah Padden) to court to try and get her certified so they can access her $3 million dollar fortune. They get stuffed in court but to show no harm has been done, the old lady invites them all to her country pile for the weekend. Not long afterwards they start dropping like flies and George Guhl ("Sheriff Boggs") and local hack "Bob White" (Wallace Ford) are on the case whilst there are still folks alive! The dialogue is quite fun and Padden, Ford and his secretary "Nora" (Marian Marsh) keep this rather daft pot-boiler swinging along nicely for just over an hour with lots of secret passages, red herrings and quite a satisfactory ending.