Rent The Mad Miss Manton (1938)

Comedy Thriller. - The Mad Miss Manton review by Steve

This is a screwball murder-mystery like the earlier Thin Man series, but funnier. Miss Manton (Barbara Stanwyck) is a dizzy Park Avenue heiress who finds a body while walking her pedigree dogs. The police don't believe her because she's always pulling some madcap publicity scam which has the Lieutenant (Sam Levene) pulling his hair out.

So she investigates the crime herself with her gang of scatterbrained high society it-girls and a cynical crime editor played by a very well groomed Henry Fonda in a top hat. Manton's girlfriends roam the set like a herd of cats. Watching these forgotten Hollywood starlets bouncing around the faux-naif dialogue is a joy.

And Hattie McDaniel is typically polished as (yes) the sassy maid. The first half is pure comic whirlwind. The latter part focuses more on the mystery, which is less fun. Director Leigh Jason has no reputation, but it's a fast moving story and looks great, with an atmospheric, pre-noir look (Nicholas Musuraca).

Stanwyck and Fonda would go on to star together more famously in The Lady Eve. And they share some chemistry here too. There's a hilarious, frothy script (Philip Epstein) and the stars don't waste a line, including many sardonic remarks about class differences. It's an archetypal thirties mystery-comedy with plenty of Manhattan glamour and just a glimpse of the New York underworld.