Tag: Herbert Marshall

REVIEW: Murder! [1930]

Jared Mobarak

You can’t run the world on sentiment. A lot needs to go wrong for Alfred Hitchcock‘s Murder! to go right. I say this because Diana Baring (Norah Baring) would never have been arrested in a perfect world. Why? For all the reasons Sir John Menier (Herbert Marshall) lays out about two-thirds of the way through. No one asked her what she thought happened. No one demanded she give the name of the man she and the deceased (Edna Druce, a performer in Diana’s acting troupe with which she had a…

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REVIEW: The Little Foxes [1941]

Jared Mobarak

“That’s cynical. But cynicism is an unpleasant way of telling the truth.” The fact The Little Foxes didn’t win an Oscar wasn’t for a lack of trying as all nine of its nominations were well earned. An adaptation of Lillian Hellman‘s stage play from just two years prior directed by William Wyler, this tale of a ruthless trio of siblings hardly shy about admitting they “stole” their wealth through marriage is witty, biting, and authentic in its look at cheaters, victims, and those standing idly by. The early nineteenth century…

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