Movie Review: Heartaches (1947)

Synopsis: Rising Hollywood star Vic Morton's biggest fear is someone will discover he doesn't sing his own songs and instead lip syncs to lyrics sung by long-time friend, Breezie. That becomes his second biggest fear when he receives death threats in the mail, and someone begins following through by killing some of his business associates, making him a suspect. Meanwhile, Jimmy McDonald, a newspaper reporter who is engaged to Morton's marketing person, Toni Wentworth, and knows Morton's secret, conducts his own investigation.

Who's in it? The movie stars Edward Norris, Sheila Ryan, Chill Wills, Kenneth Farrell and James Seay.


Review: I had planned on watching another movie this morning but was reminded I had added Heartaches to my library several days ago and, feeling in the mood for a murder mystery, decided to give it a try. It ended up being a great choice.

A lot of times, movies like this tend to be a bit predictable. There's usually only one clear and obvious suspect and it's less about who did it and more about why. That wasn't the case with this film. There were plenty of people who might have wanted Vic dead, ranging from McDonald (Norris), who was jealous of the time Toni (Ryan) spent with Morton (Farrell) to a private secretary (Chili Williams), who was in just enough scenes to be a possible wildcard. 

I couldn't even rule out Morton himself. The death threats could have just been a red herring to throw off authorities as he bumped off those who knew his secret.

Ultimately, I did manage to figure out who was behind the killings and the threats, though it wasn't anything that was confirmed for certain until the very end. And I loved how the movie got the killer to reveal themselves with a very simple ploy.

Probably my only real complaint about the movie is there is a lot of singing in it. I could understand some singing to establish the whole Hollywood crooner thing, but the film is only about an hour long and I'm certain about 10 minutes of that was music because, rather than show bits and pieces of Morton singing (lip synching), the film insisted on showing the entire songs. I would have much rather seen some of that time spent on the overall plot instead.

The movie also isn't overly clear about who wrote the death threats. While the killer would be the most logical, the ending made it sound like they weren't even connected. I would have liked some clarification on that since the movie doesn't bother to address it after the killer is revealed and if there was another writer, that means Morton's life might have still been in danger. 

Final Opinion: This is a good murder mystery with a couple nice twists. I'd recommend taking the time to watch it if you get a chance.

My Grade: A-

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Kwik Trip Kitchen Cravings Tailgater Pizza

Movie Review: Damsel (2024)

Movie Review: Mr. Monk's Last Case: A Monk Movie (2023)