The Plot Thickens (1936) on Netflix
Passed19361h 9mComedyDramaMystery
Wealthy John Carter is found dead in his car at midnight. Then a Cellini silver cup goes missing from a museum, and Inspector Oscar Piper and schoolteacher Hildegarde Withers take the case.
- Watch on NetflixThis title is not on Netflix right now. Please check back later for updates.
- Watch on NordVPN
- Netflix3.2/5
- IMDb6.3/10543 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
Plot summary
Wealthy John Carter is found dead in his car at midnight, and Inspector Oscar Piper of the New York homicide squad takes charge of the case. The suspects include Marie, Carter's maid, Joe, his chauffeur, the butler Kendall, who has designs on Marie, and Alice Stevens and Bob Wilkins, a young couple at the scene. Hildegarde Withers, a schoolteacher and an amateur sleuth, tags along as Piper follows the clues. Then a second crime arises when a priceless Cellini silver cup is taken from a local museum, whose curator is H. G. Robbins, and Piper's assistant Jim works the investigation with him.
Cast
- Alyce Ardellas Josephine, Hildegarde's Maid(uncredited)
Show all 20 cast
- John T. Bamburyas Midget(uncredited)
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Plot Thickens (1936)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- RKO had been filming Stuart Palmer's Hildegarde Withers mysteries since 1932 with Edna May Oliver as the amateur sleuth, and she played the part so well that Palmer rewrote the character in his books to match her portrayal.
- When Edna May Oliver left RKO in 1935, the studio replaced her as Hildegarde Withers with Helen Broderick, who had shown a dry, sardonic sense of humor in other pictures; Broderick made only one Withers film, Murder on a Bridle Path, and none after it.
- Comedienne ZaSu Pitts then filled the void as Hildegarde Withers; the script was written in the Edna May Oliver idiom, but Pitts played the sleuth in her usual fluttery comic style, with none of the dryness and slyness of Oliver or Broderick.
