Esther Dale's "Longacre Lil" may look like the sweet Apple Annie, but her grizzled appearance is where those similarities end. When playwright Edmund Lowe refuses to honor Lil with a gift, murders start to occur all around him, all from the same way the murder in his Broadway hit occurred: murder by snake bite. Lowe has a lot of explaining to do, but so does Dale who continues to stalk Lowe and is around every time a murder is discovered.
The mixture of mystery and theater, set in the theater capitol of the world, is an interesting setup and has the mark of another Columbia mystery series that never got off the ground. Lowe, emulating the recently deceased John Barrymore, is part ham actor, part Perry Mason, and clever enough to make this B movie intriguing. Marguerite Chapman is the lovely stage co-star frustrated by the offstage intrigue. Dale hams it up as if she knew it was her last bow and that Easter would be her own closing night, chowing down on the ham as quickly as it could be unwrapped.
The mixture of mystery and theater, set in the theater capitol of the world, is an interesting setup and has the mark of another Columbia mystery series that never got off the ground. Lowe, emulating the recently deceased John Barrymore, is part ham actor, part Perry Mason, and clever enough to make this B movie intriguing. Marguerite Chapman is the lovely stage co-star frustrated by the offstage intrigue. Dale hams it up as if she knew it was her last bow and that Easter would be her own closing night, chowing down on the ham as quickly as it could be unwrapped.