The Crimson Circle (1936) Review - Useless cops and great hats

If you have seventy minutes to kill and love creaky, old-school British mysteries, yes, The Crimson Circle is worth a spin today. 🕵️‍♂️

People who collect dusty paperbacks or enjoy late-night black-and-white television will find a lot to like here.

But if you need clean sound, fast pacing, or a plot that makes total sense... yeah, you will probably hate this.

The setup is pure Edgar Wallace pulp. A mysterious gang called the Crimson Circle is sending letters to rich folks demanding cash.

If you do not pay, you get a nasty little red circle stamp on your mail, and then you get dead.

It is pretty basic stuff, but the movie gets going fast.

What I loved was how utterly useless Scotland Yard is in this movie. They put a guy under protective custody, and he still gets murdered while they are literally standing right outside his door.

The cops just sort of look at each other like, "Well, whoops." 🤷‍♂️

The main suspect is this supposedly sexy secretary played by June Duprez.

She spends half her scenes looking incredibly guilty while standing next to filing cabinets.

I kept waiting for her to do something actually villainous, but mostly she just looks worried in very nice hats.

Then you have Noah Beery showing up, which is always a treat for fans of vintage cinema.

He brings that classic American energy to a very stiff British drawing room, even if he feels like he wandered in from a different movie set.

Speaking of weird casting, a very young William Hartnell shows up in a tiny role.

It is wild seeing the original Doctor Who running around as a second-rate tough guy before he got famous.

The whole thing has that cheap, theatrical vibe you also get in American B-movies from the same era, like The Vampire Bat.

But while that movie had spooky castles, this one has a lot of men in suits sitting at desks.

There is one hilarious moment where a guy gets shot, and the sound effect of the gun is about three seconds late.

It is those little mistakes that make these old films so charming to watch today.

The plot gets incredibly messy near the end, with secret identities being revealed left and right.

Honestly, I lost track of who was blackmailing who about halfway through.

But the vibes are immaculate if you like rain-slicked London streets and dramatic organ music.

It is not a masterpiece, but it is a fun little time machine.

Just do not expect it to change your life.