MovieChat Forums > Secret of the Blue Room (1933) Discussion > the tragedies from 20 years earlier

the tragedies from 20 years earlier


I'm not sure if the version on youtube is the complete movie. In that version, the mystery behind the tragedies which happened 20 years earlier is never solved. Are the viewers expected to assume that all of those were either deaths due to illnesses or suicide?

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💕 JimHutton (1934-79) and ElleryQueen 👍

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It does sound as if the solution were left on the cutting room floor. Or in the cellar passageways. It could have been the wife threw herself out the window over her husband leaving her and the rest was made up to cover the infamy of a woman's suicide and a man who abandoned his wife and small child. If you didn't want Irene to know her parents, in that era the best reason was they did something horrible. Abandonment and suicide would fall under that category for some people. Nobody suggested that she killed herself although it was asked about her brother's best friend who was shot

The fatuous remark by the reporter that this was better than any story he could write goes to support the notion that it was a fiction the man had had twenty years to prepare, particularly the part about the detective who died of heart failure with a look of horror on his face, which is typical ghost story fare, along with the three deaths at the same hour of the morning. All that was missing to make it the complete spooky campfire tale was the young couple who sped away from Lover's Lane and found a claw hand attached to the door handle! :)

I would have thought the estranged husband was guilty but that didn't appear to be the case in the end unless he got away with killing his wife's possible lover and the detective after she jumped or was thrown out the window. As most older mystery movies make a point of arresting ALL the murderers who made it alive to the final scene, and this one seemed to follow the rules of the genre, I have to go with the wife who committed suicide with an imaginary scream, and two imaginary killings as red herrings, along with a husband who threw away all rights to his biological daughter. I wonder what the man made up to explain the absence of his wife, who he said was Irene's mother. He must have been quite the busy bee keeping the lies straight and in agreement with what his butler and brother said and did, particularly with Irene and Thomas underfoot in the castle, poking around, for what were apparently long stretches of time.

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Since the time I started this thread, I have seen two other versions of this story and they do make connections between the old murders and the new one. Your theory about the old murders in this film make sense. I'm a bit surprised that they didn't make the connections. Of course they didn't have to, but usually in these kinds of films they do.

~~~~~
Jim Hutton (1934-79) & Ellery Queen = 

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