The Plot Thickens (1936)

Wissenswertes

The Plot Thickens is a 1936 American mystery film directed by Ben Holmes starring James Gleason, ZaSu Pitts, Owen Davis, Jr., and Louise Latimer. Pitts plays the schoolteacher and amateur sleuth Hildegarde Withers from Stuart Palmer's 1932 novella The Riddle of the Dangling Pearl. Gleason reprised his role as Hildegarde's friendly nemesis, Inspector Oscar Piper, from RKO Radio Pictures' previous Hildegarde Withers films.

Production

RKO Radio Pictures had been adapting novelist Stuart Palmer's Hildegarde Withers novels and short stories since 1932, with the patrician actress Edna May Oliver as Withers. She played the role so well that author Palmer altered the character in his books to reflect the Oliver portrayal. When Oliver left RKO in 1935, the studio selected Helen Broderick, who had displayed a dry, sardonic sense of humor in other pictures, to replace Oliver.

Filling the void was comedienne ZaSu Pitts. Pitts was a logical choice on paper—she seemed to fit the role of a prim, spinster schoolmarm, and the script was written in the Edna May Oliver idiom. However, Pitts played Withers in her usual, fluttery comic style with none of the dryness and slyness associated with her predecessors Oliver and Broderick.

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