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 master criminal known as The Voice plots with his gang to sabotage the Milesburg Oil Company, but the rightful heir has a secret army of her own to protect her rights.

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 mysterious phantom who calls himself The Reckoner vows to expose the crooked bankers who embezzled their company's funds.

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

A series of strange, inexplicable, and increasingly frightening events takes place in Mosby Manor.

After her sister dies under mysterious circumstances, a young heiress seeks Holmes' help when she feels threatened by her brutish stepfather.

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.

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

A wealthy, cheating husband is found murdered in his penthouse apartment. The police soon arrest a suspect, but the victim's downstairs neighbor believes the man is innocent and sets out to prove who really committed the murder.

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.

A mystery novelist's detective skills are put to the test when he attends a party where a murder is committed.

A reporter helps the police investigate the murder of a disagreeable and philandering actor who is found strangled to death in his theater dressing room with its door and window locked from the inside.

A criminologist investigates the murder of a Broadway producer on an ocean liner.

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.

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.

Lowe plays Chatrand the Great, a magician with great hypnotic and magical powers. During his evening performance at an upscale theater, a murder occurs. A hand wearing a sinister spider ring raises a revolver, the lights go out, and a shot rings out! When the lights come on, the body of a patron is lying on the floor, dying. Who is the mysterious killer? What is the strange secret of Lowe’s clairvoyant, amnesia-plagued assistant? After the police restrain the audience from leaving, Lowe uses his magical powers to help expose the killer. Watch for the terrific séance scene where weird ghost-like creatures float above the stage.

During a rainstorm at a remote manor house, Richard Crayell plays host to several guests. At nine o'clock sharp, he excuses himself from the card table to take his medicine, promising to return soon. When he doesn't, Claire goes in search of him, and finds his door locked from the inside.

A mystery film directed by Arthur Maude

Holt plays police lieutenant McHenry, while Graves is his friendly rival, crime reporter Wally Cook. After the two men verbally duel over a variety of details, they hunker down to business, that of solving the murder of a lawyer who was in the midst of reading a will to a motley collection of heirs.

While trying to nab a gang of diamond smugglers, the police are notified by Scotland Yard that the gang's leader, a beautiful Englishwoman who was on her way to the States to take control of the gang, has been caught. Because the American gangsters don't know what their English boss looks like, the police persuade a female impersonator to pretend to be her and infiltrate the gang.

A mystery film directed by Leslie Howard Gordon.

A widow enlists the support of a King's Counsel to help clear herself of the accusation she had murdered her husband by a suspicious coroner

A butler is found murdered in an unfurnished mansion house.

A mystery film directed by H. Manning Haynes.