I #watched the #filmThe Mad Miss Manton (1938 US 80m) last night. Returning from a party at 3am, rich socialite Melsa Manton (Barbara Stanwyck) picks up her dogs from her doorman, and takes them for their nightly walk, during which she sees acquaintance Ronny Belden run from an abandoned building and speed away in his car. Curious, she enters and finds a dead body. Running out, her cloak and the brooch that held it snag on a doorway, and she leaves them behind.
When the police arrive, the body and cloak are gone. Given that Manton and her fur-coat clique have had other rich-people interactions with the law, the police consider the call a prank, and the next morning the new young editor of the Clarion, Peter Ames (Henry Fonda), writes an editorial upbraiding Manton. She shows up in his office to sue his paper for libel, and the #ScrewballComedy is off running.
The police investigate in the official manner, Manton and her socialite squad investigate the murder their way (one offers $100 to someone for info; that's $2100 today), and Ames does the same. The two amateur groups have their differences – Ames gets tied up in Belden's apartment, when both groups look it over – before joining forces. And of course this #mystery has its #romance, when Ames decides he must marry Manton, despite his early words to her: "When I met you, I disliked you intensely."
Watching eight wealth thirtyish women, always in evening clothes and fur stoles, investigate a mystery is interesting. The #movie has blackmail, ex-cons, several murders, death threats, false alibis, fast patter, and more. ●●●◐○