Perennial second-from-the-left-cop-in-the-station-house, George Guhl, has a featured role, would you believe, in Monogram's 1941 tale, Murder by Invitation, which turns out to be a sort of Mrs Longfellow Deeds Meets the Cat and the Canary. With halfway competent direction and a halfway appropriate budget, this may well have turned out as sleeper of the year. The money is there all right, but Phil Rosen's direction is strictly from hunger. The picture's potential is unrealized. Obviously left largely to their own devices, the players do what they can to salvage the film. Although inclined to over-act, I thought Sarah Padden carried off the main role with a fair amount of conviction, although other reviewers disagree. George Guhl was a big letdown, and I was also disappointed that Marian Marsh was simply just another pretty blonde in this outing and no longer the charismatic charmer of Beauty and the Boss.
Review of Murder by Invitation
