It’s not difficult to assign blame for Miss Pinkerton‘s failings, it’s difficult to identify anything good about it.
I suppose Joan Blondell isn’t bad in the lead, but she isn’t good. She’s just doing a persona. Wait, George Brent’s good. He’s the police inspector who–quite unrealistically–enlists nurse Blondell to investigate a wacky family for him. He doesn’t believe a murder is a suicide. Or vice versa.
But Blondell just walking around wide-eyed and a little flirty isn’t enough to make a movie. Pinkerton needs some kind of mystery, right?
One mystery might be why the filmmakers use the exteriors to a large house–not a mansion or estate–as the film’s central location. It’s endlessly large in the interiors, which don’t match the exteriors at all.
The supporting cast is atrocious, except C. Henry Gordon. Particularly bad are John Wray and Ruth Hall. Wray acts like he’s in a farce and Hall’s laughable as the victim’s fiancée.
The real problem with Pinkerton is director Bacon. He can’t get good performances from his cast and he can’t make the film’s weak mystery engaging. He also doesn’t seem to understand head room. People are constantly bumping their heads in Pinkerton.
Bacon’s problems directing aren’t immediately apparent because Ray Curtiss’s editing is so awful. It actually distracts from the direction until the head room issues get too obvious.
Barney McGill’s photography, while no great shakes, is competent at least.
Pinkerton‘s greatest success is being really short but still exceptionally boring.
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