When a young actress Edna Druce is found dead in her flat, all circumstantial evidence points to her friend/rival Diana Baring (Norah Baring) being the culprit. Diana has absolutely no memory of what happened, but most of the jury at the trial agrees that she is guilty. The lone objector, Sir John Menier (Herbert Marshall), believes she is innocent, but eventually submits to pressure to vote that she is guilty. Diana is sentenced to be hanged, making Menier feel riddled with guilt.
Determined to save Diana from death, he starts doing a little investigation of his own. Not only does he feel guilty for voting her guilty, but he has another reason to want to save her –Menier is an established stage actor and had suggested Diana take the job in the theater troupe with the murder victim as a way to gain experience. So if it weren’t for him, she wouldn’t have ended up in this mess at all. After talking to Diana for a while, he finds out there was another man in the flat that night, but she won’t say who. Using his theater connections, Menier concocts a way to get to find the real killer.
Murder! is probably one of the least interesting Alfred Hitchcock movies I’ve ever seen. Although the story sounded interesting on the surface, it just didn’t hold my interest very well in action. It has a few moments of cleverness and I thought the climax was good. On the whole though, this just did absolutely nothing for me. Dull, dull, dull.
