Best Mystery Movies of 1931

Movie star Shelah Fane is seeing wealthy Alan Jaynes while filming in Honolulu, Hawaii, but won't marry him without consulting famed psychic Tanaverro first. Tanaverro confronts her about the unsolved murder of fellow film star Denny Mayo three years earlier, and she decides to reject Jaynes' proposal. When Shelah is found shot to death in her beach-front pavilion, Charlie Chan of the Honolulu Police investigates.

A mysterious phantom who calls himself "The Reckoner" vows to expose the crooked bankers who embezzled their company's funds. Director J. Walter Ruben's 1931 drama stars Richard Dix, Shirley Grey, Boris Karloff, Paul Hurst, Frank Sheridan, Nella Walker, Purnell Pratt, Ruth Weston, Carl Gerard and Rochelle Hudson.

A policeman (William Boyd) investigates a woman's (Lilyan Tashman) link to murders that are preceded by a shrilling horn inside a family mausoleum.

Wealthy Mr. Kennedy shoots his secretary, Channing, during a parlor game, but it turns out the gun was loaded with real bullets. Luckily, criminologist Phillip Montrose is on hand to help the police. When Kennedy quickly ends up dead as well, the police think it's a tidy murder-suicide, but the family lawyer knows of a letter that voiced Kennedy's suspicions about someone who was out to get him. Soon, the cops are on the trail of a ruthless and clever killer who is one step ahead of even Montrose.

Clint Turner is arrested for the murder of his girlfriend Judy's father, a rival rancher who was an enemy of his own father, and his best friend, Sheriff Buck Gordon sets out to find the real killer in the face of pressure for a quick lynching of Clint.

He is working on the books to cover his crimes, when a visitor arrives with a gun. In the conversation that ensues, it is revealed that the visitor is an escaped convict that was a former employee of the bank. He was railroaded to prison to cover the crooked banker's crime. As with other entries in this series, there is a shadow projected every so often with a voice forecasting what is to come.

Charlie steps in to solve the murder of a wealthy American found dead in a London hotel. Settings include London, Nice, San Remo, Honolulu and Hong Kong. Fast-paced with lots of wisecracking.

A young couple live under a café in Paris that, unknown to them, is owned by a brutal blackmailer. When he is murdered, they fall under suspicion. However, the husband's father, an amateur detective, believes in their innocence and sets out to find who really killed the blackmailer.

A card cheat is threatened with exposure into joining a criminal enterprise that Holmes believes is controlled by Professor Moriarity.