Such a frustrating disappointment

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Blistering performances.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

In a screenplay that seems like it was written by a soundstage technician, this boring mystery drags even in a short running time. The victim is a movie actor, and of course, everybody on the set and at the studio becomes a suspect. They include his leading lady/ex-wife (Adrienne Ames) and the studio chief (Bela Lugosi!). David Manners, the handsome hero of several 30's horror classics and women's films, seems miscast as the script writer who becomes involved in the investigation. While the clues he discovers are described in great detail, some of the terms used can only be understood by those "inside the know-how" of how movies made in 1933, with the possible exception of "action!" and "cut!". Adrienne Ames, a Joan Crawford look-alike, has nothing to do but look attractive and slightly suspicious (but mostly just acts stunned), and while Lugosi is authoritative, his legend defines him too much. Not aiding in his performance is his heavy accent which type-casts him, if not as a boogie man, then as a heavy. Either way, he is wasted in this part. Slow pacing makes the convoluted story even more tedious, even if the behind the scenes filming of the film within the film is pretty impressive.

"The Death Kiss," a humor-laced murder mystery set in a Hollywood movie studio, unspools at a snappy pace offering one delight after another: a striking opening, followed by the introduction of a succession of colorful characters played by Everett Van Sloan, Bela Lugosi, Harold Minjir, Alexander Carr, the photogenic Adrienne Ames and David Manners as a studio writer who tries to figure out whodunit. There is a loose, breezy feel, with the camera tracking and panning freely not only around the movie studio but into its nooks and crannies as the dialogue zings with amusing exchanges and wisecracks. There are even hand-tinted flames, gunshots and flashlight beams during various action sequences.

Early Talkie-Fest that has a Number of Things that make this just a Tad Above the Normal Run of the Mill, Low-Budget Movies that were Churned Out in Hollywood at the Time Faster than Food in Styrofoam. There's Bela Lugosi in a Non-Horror, Non-Leading Role. A Peek Behind the Scenes at the Primitive Sound Stages of 1932. The Reunion of three Major Stars from Dracula (1931). Some Very Effective and Neat use of Limited Color Tinting. Pre-Code Characters that in a Few Short Years would become Extinct, Homosexuals and Ethnic Types. The Plotting of a Movie within a Movie.The Story Unfolds with more Characters and Twists and Red Herrings than Necessary, but Overall it is Worth a Watch for the Aforementioned and while Never Dull in the End it Boils Over from too much in the Pot. Affecting, Interesting, and a Curioso.

The emergence of self-reflexivity is always a sign that a certain final level has been reached in the development of thinking or art. Early literature is not self-reflexive: the love-songs of the minstrels are not personal, but following abstract schemes. The antique novels are not narrated in the first person. The individual is hiding behind an invented protagonist. Also early film did not thematize film itself. Perhaps at the basis of avoiding self-reflexivity is the fear to recognize oneself in the mirror. This had been extensively dealt with in the work of E.T.A. Hoffmann. The motives of losing one's mirror-image or one's shadow roots in this fear. In mathematics, iteration leads quickly leads to the well known paradoxes which cannot be solved in classical logic and which let whole system break together."The Death Kiss" (1932) is now in at least three ways an outstanding example of early talky film: First, it is the story of an actor who has to be killed for the shooting of a movie, but at this occasion gets actually shot to death. Second, the movie is a movie on a movie. And third: "The Death Kiss" is both the title of the movie and of the movie in the movie. Furthermore, a special effect is reached - if one wants: number four - by the fact that the actor who wrote the scenario for the movie in the movie (and also for the movie?), which is a criminal story, is also the one who will in the end solve the murder case and deliver the killer to the police which seems to be unable to go ahead without the author of the scenario. As number five, one could mention that Bela Lugosi, who just had played one year ago (1931) the main role in "Dracula", is naturally assumed by the audience to be the villain. But that is not all: As audience, we witness that the detective-author who "investigates" the case also seems to assume over almost the whole running time of the movie that the character Mr. Steiner, played by Lugosi, is in fact the killer. Only in the last couple of minutes we see with him that it is someone else. Herewith not only the expectation of the audience is cheated, but we are forced to follow the progress of the detective-author in our own considerations, i.e. we more or less get ourselves a part of the movie, so that the movie plays on three and not only on two levels: 1. The movie, 2. The movie in the movie, 3. In our perception of the movie and of the movie of the movie. This is an amazing and often overseen movie, and considering it early date quite outstanding.