A Face in the Fog (Robert F. Hill, 1936)

An hour-long cheapie with enough story to power a 12-episode miniseries, A Face in the Fog is a modest, silly, fun little murder mystery from the short-lived but prolific independent production company Victory Pictures. Victory operated for five years in the latter half of the 1930s, even managing to keep the business together for two years after a devastating studio fire in 1937. They specialized in westerns but occasionally dipped their toe into other genres. A Face in the Fog slams together several, including horror, mystery, comedy, the police procedural, the newspaper movie, and the behind-the-scenes-of-showbiz movie. They even sprinkle a few dollops of romance near the end. It's truly head-spinning how much they cram into an hour. Needless to say, the plot holes are a mile wide but whiz by so fast you won't question them until after the credits roll.

I'm going to foolishly attempt a condensed plot description. A cloaked, hunchbacked serial killer named The Fiend is on a murder spree in Los Angeles, wasting people with a mysterious poison whose application is unknown (we soon find out it involves a gun that shoots a frozen poison pellet that dissolves upon contact with its target). Most of the killer's victims are the cast or crew of a play being rehearsed at a theater in the neighborhood. The Fiend has unsuccessfully attempted to murder newspaper columnist Jean Monroe (June Collyer) because she posted a sensationalistic column about seeing the killer's face. She admits she fabricated the column to her boyfriend and reporter at the paper Frank Gordon (Lloyd Hughes) (her defense: "I have a flair for the dramatic"), but that lie has made her a target. Jean and Frank are apparently the only writers at the paper, the other two employees being the no-nonsense editor Harrison (Sam Flint) and the all-nonsense alcoholic photographer Elmer (Al St. John).

The police are investigating the murders without any luck but have enlisted the help of the doomed theatrical production's playwright, Peter Fortune (Lawrence Gray). As the head detective believably tells us in an incredible piece of exposition, in addition to writing many successful murder mystery plays, Fortune is also a part-time private investigator who has assisted the police in solving multiple homicides. Fortune gives half of the credit to a mysterious friend named Sanchi (one name, like Cher or Madonna) who lives in a shack on the outskirts of town and gives Fortune ideas for murder methods in both his plays and unsolved cases. Everyone wants to talk to Sanchi, but he'll only talk to Fortune.

You may not think that plot description was as condensed as I promised, but at least 37 more things happen in the remaining 45 minutes. The film is a whirlwind of exposition and action that almost never catches its breath. It's hardly a marvel of cinematic technique, and the comic relief sometimes lands with a dull thud, but it's a lot of fun if you enjoy '30s time capsules. It's also a rare early example of a serial killer being the villain of a horror (or horror-adjacent) movie. Most '30s horror involves ghosts, monsters, ancient curses, deals with the devil, or killers bumping off relatives or colleagues for an inheritance or career boost or expensive stolen object, so it's fun to see a weirdo with a poison gun bumping people off for mysterious reasons.

Though the majority of the film was shot on studio sets, the handful of location-shot scenes are the most fascinating part of the whole movie for me. The driving scenes, instead of being studio-bound static shots with back projection, are actually filmed on the city streets of Los Angeles circa 1936. It's so fun seeing the old cars, traffic, pedestrians, shops, and streets of a portion of 1930s Los Angeles. I wonder if Sanchi's shack still exists. It's a great shack. (There's no way that shack still exists. That's prime real estate.)