DbcultAccessing Vault...
4.4/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 4.4/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. Strange Case of Hennessy remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
Honestly, only if you have a very specific itch for 1930s musical spoofs that don't quite know what they want to be. If you’re a fan of the classic Philo Vance mysteries, you’ll either find this hilarious or want to throw a brick at the screen. People who hate musicals or plots that move like a turtle on a treadmill should probably steer clear.
The whole thing kicks off with a lunatic escaping his restraints and just… wandering into a house. It’s that easy! He decides he’s Silo Dance, a detective, and for some reason, everyone just rolls with it. The logic here is thinner than the wallpaper.
You’re watching a detective story, and suddenly, boom, someone is singing. It’s jarring. Sometimes it’s charming in that old-fashioned, fuzzy-audio way, but mostly it feels like the director was trying to check off two different genres at the same time and forgot to blend them. Cliff Edwards is in this, and he’s clearly doing his best to carry the musical load, but the energy shifts from "intense mystery" to "vaudeville act" so fast I almost got whiplash.
There is this one moment where they’re investigating a room, and the lighting gets all dramatic, and then—out of nowhere—a chorus line seems to be looming in the periphery of the staging. It’s bizarre. It feels less like a movie and more like a fever dream you’d have after watching Merrily We Go to Hell and eating way too much cheese before bed.
Our lead, the fake detective, is a total riot. He’s running around acting like he’s solved the case every five minutes while actually doing absolutely nothing. There’s no real deduction here, just a lot of posturing. You know those moments in movies where the character thinks they’re smart but the audience knows they’re a complete train wreck? That’s 90% of the runtime.
It’s not a good movie. I’m not going to pretend it is. But there’s a certain low-budget, high-anxiety charm to it. It’s not trying to reach the heights of something like Raskolnikov, obviously, but it doesn't have the dignity to stay in its lane, either. It’s just kind of… there. Sometimes that’s enough to keep you watching until the credits roll, if only to see how much more ridiculous they can get with the plot. 🎶
IMDb 7.2
1931
Community
Log in to comment.
