A Slight Case of Murder (1938)

Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Jane Bryan, Allen Jenkins, Ruth Donnelly

Rating: NR

Running Time: 85 min.

Synopsis: Slight Case of Murder is a breakneck-paced comedy starring Edward G. Robinson as a tough but good-hearted bootlegger. When Prohibition is repealed, Robinson faces a financial crisis: His beer tastes so awful that no one wants to drink it legally. As an additional headache, Robinson is under scrutiny from the Law, which is waiting to slip the cuffs on him for the slightest infraction. He arrives at his rented Saratoga mansion with his wife (Ruth Donnelly), daughter (Jane Bryan) and adopted son (Bobby Jordan), only to discover that a killer has left four corpses in his bedroom. Robinson and his stooges are forced to hide the bodies before his future son-in-law (Willard Parker), who happens to be a cop, tumbles to the dilemma. Based on a stage play by Howard Lindsay and Damon Runyon, A Slight Case of Murder a just as entertaining in the 1990s as it was fifty years ago (please ignore a tepid 1953 musical remake titled Stop, You're Killing Me). Surprisingly, this film was not a favorite of star Edward G. Robinson, who felt that director Lloyd Bacon rushed through the material without taking full advantage of its comic potential.