Best Mystery Movies of 1934

After a road accident in Hungary, the American honeymooners Joan and Peter and the enigmatic Dr. Werdegast find refuge in the house of the famed architect Hjalmar Poelzig, who shares a dark past with the doctor.

While vacationing in St. Moritz, a British couple receive a clue to an imminent assassination attempt, only to learn that their young daughter has been kidnapped to keep them quiet.

After receiving congratulations from the Home Secretary for solving his most recent case, Charlie is sought out by Pamela Gray, a beautiful but desperate young socialite whose brother Paul awaits execution for the murder of a weapons inventor. She is so convinced of his innocence that she becomes distraught when she overhears Neil Howard, her brother's lawyer and her fiancee, confide to the detective his belief in his client's guilt. Angered at this disclosure, she returns his ring and breaks off the engagement. Although the execution will take place in 65 hours, Charlie pledges to expose the murderer. All potential suspects are reassembled in the country mansion of family friend Geoffrey Richmond, where the murder took place, as Charlie tries to expose the real murderer before time runs out.

A criminal lawyer's wife faces blackmail when she has an affair.

Charlie is hired to deliver a pearl necklace to a millionaire at his ranch. When murder intervenes he disguises himself as a Chinese servant and begins sleuthing.

Val takes the assistance of a society reporter and a journalist to investigate the disappearance of her half-sister Arlene, a wealthy socialite who is involved in criminal activities.

A businesslike syndicate runs all the gambling joints in town; least profitable is honest Mike Lee's. Under pressure to allow cheating, Mike "walks out," leaving tough-minded daughter Lady Lee to earn a living the only way she knows. She soon becomes a success gambling among the rich, but, falling out with the syndicate, she considers the marriage proposal of blueblood Garry Madison. Can such a match work despite snobbery and old associations?

Judge Priest, a proud Confederate veteran, restores the justice in a small town in the Post-Bellum Kentucky using his common sense and his great sense of humanity.

A very nervous man named Cartwright comes into Perry's office to have the neighbor arrested for his howling dog. He states that the howling is a sign that there is a death in the neighborhood. He also wants a will written giving his estate to the lady living at the neighbors house. It is all very mysterious and by the next day, his will is changed and Cartwright is missing, as is the lady of the house next door. Perry has a will and a retainer and must find out whether he has a client or a beneficiary.

The President Vanishes, released in the United Kingdom as Strange Conspiracy, is a 1934 American political drama film directed by William A. Wellman and produced by Walter Wanger. Starring Edward Arnold and Arthur Byron, the film is an adaptation of Rex Stout's political novel of the same name.

Based on a 1933 stage production billed as “The Play That Made Broadway Gasp,” it features an over-the-top performance by Mary Morris (repeating her stage role) as a domineering money-bags whose suppressed incestuous urges go into overdrive when her half-brother (Kent Taylor) brings a new bride (Venable) home to the family’s gloomy Fifth Avenue mansion. The title refers to a secret soundproofed chamber that the villainess uses to entrap her enemies. (Gene Siskel Film Center)

Pop Clark is about to lose his baseball team, unless they can win the pennant so he can pay off debts. He hires ace player Larry Kelly to ensure the victory. As well as rival teams, mobsters are trying to prevent the wins, and as the pennant race nears the end, Pop's star players begin to be killed, on and off the field. Can Larry romance Pop's daughter, win enough games, and still have time to stop a murderer before he strikes more than three times?

A psychotic man stalks three innocent people whom he believes are responsible for his brother's death.

A sophisticated jewel thief tries to prove himself innocent of a string of cop murders.

There are plenty of guilty secrets at the school where Hildegarde Withers teaches. When she finds the body of the pretty music teacher, she calls in her old friend Inspector Piper, who promptly arrests the obvious suspect. Clues multiply and everyone looks suspicious as Piper and Miss Withers continue their battle of the sexes.

Shortly before the curtain goes up the first time at the latest performance of Earl Carroll's Vanities, someone is attempting to injure the leading lady Ann Ware, who wants to marry leading man Eric Lander. Stage manager Jack Ellery calls in his friend, policeman Bill Murdock, to help him investigate. Bill thinks Jack is offering to let him see the show from an unusual viewpoint after he forgot to get him tickets for the performance, but then they find the corpse of a murdered woman and Bill immediately suspects Eric of the crime.

Eight people are invited by an unsigned telegram to a penthouse apartment, where they find themselves locked in and greeted by their unknown host's voice via the radio, who explains that before the night is over each one will be die unless they manage to outwit the ninth guest, Death.

A man dodges jewel thieves while carrying a fortune in diamonds on the Orient Express.

After notorious jewel thief Flambeau meets Evelyn Fischer during a raid on a casino, he falls deeply in love with her. Later Flambeau sends notes to both Leopold Fischer, who unknown to him is Evelyn's uncle, and Father Brown, in which he vows he will steal from them the ten diamonds that comprise the "Flying Star." Flambeau intends to give these diamonds to Evelyn. Father Brown, whose gold cross contains some of the Flying Star diamonds, is determined to meet Flambeau before he is arrested, to reform and redeem his soul.

Dashing British sleuth Captain Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond finds himself immersed in another adventure when he stumbles upon a corpse in the mysterious London mansion of Prince Achmed. Enlisting the help of his old friend Algy and the beautiful Lola, Drummond uncovers a scheme to ship illegal cargo into the country. He must rely on his cunning to survive when the prince offers a reward for his capture.

Murder results when a group of houseguests converge on a chateau, each plotting to steal a valuable Gutenberg Bible.

Sir Douglas Rolls is a highly respected defence lawyer of many years experience. Now in rapidly failing health, he is advised to retreat from the courtroom and pursue more pleasurable activities. But it is just at this point in his life that his great lost love a woman his own strong sense of duty led him to give up twenty years ago, and whom he still loves deeply walks into his chambers to ask that he defend her adulterous husband, now to stand trial for murder. Reluctantly agreeing to take on the case, Sir Douglas soon finds there is more to the story than meets the eye.

An actor is murdered live on air whilst a play is being broadcast. Everyone in the play and broadcasting house fall under suspicion.

Wonderful idea to give a party with people who dislike each other. Late at night, everyone decides to go into the pool, except Stamm, who is drunk. Montague dives in as does Greeff and Leland, but only Greeff and Leland come out. Montague is no where to be found so Leland suspects foul play and calls the cops. Luckily, Philo is with the D.A. and comes along, but they do not find Montague. When they drain the pool the next day, they find nothing except what looks like dragon prints. Philo has his suspicions and tries to piece the clues together to find out what has happened.

Director D. Ross Lederman's 1934 drama, about a controlling and vengeful Hollywood actress, stars Gail Patrick, Ralph Bellamy, Shirley Grey, Kane Richmond, Bradley Page and Vincent Sherman.

Two insurance detectives work with the police to identify and bring down a crime kingpin. One is murdered, but his partner and his daughter continue.

Friends uncover a dark secret when they compare notes about a theft and suicide.

Jack Brookfield, a gambler with clairvoyant and hypnotic powers, is able to win at cards through his unique gift. But when he inadvertently hypnotizes young Clay Thorne, Thorne kills an enemy of Brookfield's while under a trance. No one believes Brookfield's protestations that Thorne is innocent of any murderous intent, so Brookfield teams up with retired lawyer Martin Prentice in hopes of saving the young man from the gallows.

Underworld king Lee Lother has been killed aboard a ocean liner, several people could have been the murderer. There is his mistress Anya Roysen, a married woman, who was jealous of his flirtations with his old moll, night club singer Sally Marsh, who had agreed for one last night with Lother, to get her younger brother Ned out of the Lother's clutches because he has faked Lother's name on a check to pay his gambling debts. Then there is Sally's new flame Jimmy Brett, a con man and gentlemen thief, who has out-tricked Lother in a fixed poker game, and is, together with shorty, after the ladies jewels. Inspector McKinney suspects Joe Saunders, a recently released convict, who was arrested due to some tips by Lother, but Ned and Sally insist that they committed the crime alone.

A batty Scottish professor attempts to prove the existence of the Loch Ness Monster, but everyone thinks he's crazy. Meanwhile, a foolish young reporter attempts to get a scoop on the story.

Prohibited from seeing her actor sweetheart Herman Brandt (Ricardo Cortez) by her tyrannical parents, sweet young Vienesse lass Mariette (Anita Louise) defies authority by regularly visiting Brandt's downstairs apartment. The lovers' signal is a song called "The Firebird," which Brandt sings whenever he wants Mariette to visit him. When the actor is murdered, poor Mariette and her parents are prime suspects. But the truth is a bit more complicated than that, involving as it does a haughty aristocrat (Veree Teasdale), a powerful diplomat (Lionel Atwill) and a most unusual "candid camera" device.

A ghostly and deadly dinner party, which at first turns out to be an elaborate staging of a new play for the benefit of a Broadway producer, becomes a true mystery when the players start to go missing.

A radio columnist is threatened by gangsters and later murdered during a broadcast. A detective sets out to find the killers.

Young Raymond Rudford,sculptor, is on trial for slitting the throat of his uncle, who had adopted and raised him after Raymond's parent's died when he was a young boy. The prosecution allows his motive was fear of being disinherited if he married his fiancé, the fair Alicia Atherton, against his uncle's wishes, and the prosecution lays a mountain of evidence against Raymond, including his razor, dragged from an artificial lake on the estate, as the murder weapon; Raymond's bloody fingerprints and footprints found at the scene of bedroom crime, and his bloody shoes, found in his cupboard and bloody monogrammed-handkerchief found under his uncle's death bed. Raymond's only defense is that he could not have committed the crime as he goes into a paroxysm of dread at the mere sight of blood, a phobia he has had ever since childhood when his dog was run over by a lorry and the dog's blood was splattered into his face.

Bob Halsey is a first-rate pilot who's in love with stewardess Judy Wagner. He's ordered to deliver a secret formula to Washington, D.C., but a spy hears about the assignment and sabotages it by murdering Bob's fellow flyers and making off with the liquid. While the government conducts a vast search for the formula, the spies entangle Judy in their web of deceit, causing Bob to set off on his own in an effort to save his sweetheart and retrieve the missing mixture.

A man wrongfully convicted of murder escapes custody and goes in search of the real killer. The problem is that he only has one clue to go on.

The owner of a large mansion in the country throws a costume party for some of his friends. However, the party turns sour when he is found stabbed to death in a closet. The police and a guest try to discover who committed the murder.

A valuable gem from India is stolen in an old dark mansion and it is up to Scotland Yard inspector Charles Irwin to find out who did it among all the suspects who were in the house.

A reporter itching to get off the boring gardening "beat" gets a chance to investigate a series of arson fires that have been plaguing the city. He believes the fires are tied into a web of political corruption involving a wealthy businessman, the mayor and the police chief. Complicatins ensue when the girl assigned to help him turns out to be the businessman's daughter.

Police try to solve a murder on board an ocean liner.

A doctor uses his unique medical knowledge to mastermind a lucrative life-insurance scam; in a rare film role, legendary thespian Gerald du Maurier stars as the Metropolitan Police Commissioner who sets out to uncover the secret of five empty coffins and catch the villainous swine responsible for such depravities.

Jerry Beall, a young newspaper reporter, intrigued by the charm and beauty of Barbara Hammond, a girl accused of murdering a female radio-star, sets out to prove her innocence in the face of a damaging array of circumstantial evidence, abetted by the lack of truth in many of Barbara's statements. But Barbara winds up in a romantic clinch instead of the electric chair, after a series of sequences that reveal the fallacy of jumping to conclusions.

At Phwitterby-on-Thames, England, a murder has occurred and Philo Holmes and Dr. Watkins are out to investigate it. Seems as if there is a second will and changes have been made in who will receive what. Philo is the ace detective, and he brings everyone from the nightclub to see him solve the case.

Author/explorer John W. Vandercook conceived the character of Bertram Lynch as an investigator for the League of Nations. He is Trinidad's Port o' Spain trying to track down the leader of a gang of diamond smugglers. A trail, littered with murders, leads him to a crocodile-infested swamp.

"The Terror", a killer whose identity is unknown, occupies an English country house that has been converted into an inn.

A dancing gigolo gets involved with a wealthy lady and her young step-daughter, and murder is the result.

Early '30s comedy-mystery involving magicians, fake psychics and murder.

Inspector Steve Trent tracks the stolen Cortez emerald, last pilfered by a murdered gangster.

The film stars Edmund Gwenn, who plays a chemist, whose son Lawrence (played by Barry MacKay) is attacked on a train. He appears to have shot the man.