Best Mystery Movies of 1936

Allen Colby, heir to a huge fortune, is presumed drowned after an ocean liner sinks off the coast of Honolulu. Mysteriously, Colby reappears at his mansion only to be murdered soon after. When his body is discovered during a seance, everyone in attendance becomes a suspect, and it's up to Chan to find the murderer before he or she strikes again.

While visiting the circus with his family, Charlie is recruited by the big top's co-owner to investigate threatening letters that he's received.

In the second screen version of The Maltese Falcon, a detective is caught between a lying seductress and a lady jewel thief.

Lawyer Perry Mason is summoned to the Laxter mansion in the dead of night to write granddaughter Wilma out of invalid Peter Laxter's will, to keep her from marrying suspected fortune hunter Doug. Peter dies in a mysterious fire and Laxter's two grandsons, Sam Laxter and Frank Oafley, inherit his estate on the condition old caretaker Schuster and his cat Clinker are kept on. When cat-hating Sam threatens Clinker, Perry steps in and learns Laxter's death was suspicious and the family fortune and diamonds are missing. Schuster's found dead in his basement apartment, Laxter's nurse Louise is murdered with Schuster's crutch, and circumstantial evidence brings Doug to trial for Louise's death. Mason's investigation produces a surprise witness who turns the trial around. Written by Sister Grimm

A Swedish princess boards an ocean liner in Europe en route to an acting career in America, and finds herself getting inconveniently attached to a bandleader returning home. To complicate matters, a blackmailer on board apparently knows she is not who she claims to be - and he has his sights set on other passengers with secrets of their own. In the meantime an escaped killer has stowed away under someone else's identity, and is killing again to cover his tracks; five international police detectives on board are heading the investigation to find him. When evidence points to the princess and bandleader, they must find the killer themselves - before he finds them.

Sassy manicurist Eve Fallon is recruited as an even more brassy reporter and she helps police detective boyfriend Danny Barr break a jewel theft ring and solve the murder of a baby.

Reporter Terry Brewer goes to the Los Angeles airport to say goodbye to his sweetheart, airline hostess Rita Moore. He notices G-Man Mike Phelan among the passengers and assuming Phelan is on the trail of a criminal, decides to go along to get a story.

Director Benjamin Stoloff's 1936 mystery, set in Boston, stars Walter Abel as an amnesiac and Margot Grahame as an unemployed stage actress who work together to solve the murder of a playwright.

Urbane detective Philo Vance (Edmund Lowe) solves murders caused by hypnosis.