Best Mystery Movies of 1942

Five young adults in a small American town face the revelations of secrets that threaten to ruin their hopes and dreams.

Two dumb soda jerks dream of writing radio mysteries. When they try to pitch an idea at a radio station, they end up in the middle of a real murder when the station owner is killed during a broadcast.

Charlie Chan, with son Jimmy on a week's pass from the Army, takes up a request for help at a castle-home, miles from anywhere in the American desert south-west and inhabited by an eccentric, reclusive historian and his wife, a descendant of Lucrezia Borgia. Once there, he finds the request's legitimacy denied by all who are present, but still necessary as one houseguest has already been murdered, the other guests are at each other's throat, and the Borgia-related chatelain is suspected...

A woman rents a gloomy basement apartment in Greenwich Village thinking it will provide the perfect atmosphere for her mystery writer husband to create his next book. They soon find themselves in the middle of a real-life mystery when a corpse turns up in their apartment.

England, at the start of World War Two. Mysterious wireless broadcasts, apparently from Nazi Germany are heard over the BBC. They warn of acts of terror in England, just before they take place. Baffled, the Defence Committee call in Holmes ...

Blind detective Duncan Maclain gets mixed up with enemy agents and murder when he tries to help an old friend with a rebellious stepdaughter.

A French diplomat who's recovered from amnesia is blackmailed over crimes he can't remember.

A radio correspondent tries to rescue a burlesque queen from her marriage to a Nazi official.

While an escaped convict, Moose Malloy, goes in search of his ex-girlfriend Velma, police inspector Michael O'Hara attempts to track him assuming him to be a prime suspect for a number of mishaps.

Kurt Ingston, a rich recluse, invites the doctors who left him a hopeless cripple to his desolate mansion in the swamps as one by one they meet horrible deaths.

A werewolf prowls around at night but only kills certain members of one family. It seems like just a coincidence, but the investigating Inspector soon finds out that this tradition has gone on for generations and tries to find a link between the werewolf and the family, leading to a frightening conclusion.

In Chicago, an unemployed actor aims to solve the mystery concerning a string of ax murders, apparently committed by a lunatic.

A high priest of Karnak travels to America with the living mummy Kharis (Lon Chaney Jr.) to kill all those who had desecrated the tomb of the Egyptian princess Ananka thirty years earlier.

In December 1892, a silent mysterious and very private man, for whom a new house has just been built, arrives in the small town of Bridgewood to keep a promise.

Conniving Broadway starlet Mida King has plenty of enemies, so when she's found murdered at Grand Central Station, Inspector Gunther calls together a slew of suspects for questioning. Mida's shady ex-flame, Turk, seems the most likely culprit, but when smart-mouthed private eye Rocky Custer -- also a suspect himself -- begins to piece together the crime, a few clues that Gunther has overlooked come to light.

A man believed to be dead and buried escapes from his grave and returns to the scene of the crime seeking revenge.

Struggling performers, Sothern and Skelton's lives are thrown off gear when they are caught with a bagful of hard cash robbed by a goon. With Skelton in prison, how will Sothern prove their innocence?

In the second film of the series (and not a second part of anything), Gay Lawrence, aka The Falcon, is about to depart the city to marry his fiancée, Helen Reed, when a mystery girl, Rita Mara, asks for his aid in disposing of a secret formula for making synthetic diamonds. He deliberately allows himself to be kidnapped by the gang for which Rita works. His aide, "Goldy" Locke, trails the kidnappers and brings the police. But the head of the gang escapes, and the Falcon continues the pursuit.

A gentlemanly detective known as The Falcon calls on his brother to help him stop the Nazis from assassinating a key diplomat.

In order to win back his girlfriend, Mike Shayne promises to give up his detective practice and get a job as riveter in an aircraft plant. He quickly finds himself investigating the theft of industrial diamonds from the plant's safe and, utilizing a variety of false identities, traces them first to a dress factory and later to a Hawaii-bound ocean liner. Escaping several attempts on his life, he is able to uncover a Nazi smuggling ring, but the location of the missing diamonds continues to elude him.

The Lone Wolf tracks down Nazi spies in London during the German bombing.

Detective Ellery Queen aids Free Dutch agents battle Nazi spies over a prize of industrial diamonds.

Married sleuths (Gracie Allen, William Post Jr.) find a corpse in their closet and round up suspects.

Wartime propaganda piece giving the warning "Be like Dad, Keep Mum". A gossipy housewife is overheard talking about what her son is doing by a Nazi spy.

Two teachers, man-hungry Doris and restrained Marian, visit the Yorkshire moors a year after friend Evelyn disappeared there. On a stormy night, they take refuge in the isolated cottage of Stephen, one-time pianist shell-shocked in the Spanish Civil War. Doris flees as soon as the flood subsides; but Marian's suspicions about Evelyn's fate, in conflict with her growing love for Stephen, prompt her to stay on among the misty bogs.

Peter Thorne is a young attorney who works for an eccentric old woman, Lorinda Channing, who uses her insane brother, John Channing, to frighten her other relatives because they are after her money. Further complications arise when another murderer arrives on the scene and plants the blame on John.

A detective (Milton Berle) who solves cases on the radio investigates the decade-old murder of a sea captain.

The doctor (Lionel Barrymore) has a Kansan (Van Johnson), an Australian and an Asian from Brooklyn to choose from.

Someone has absconded with $4,000,000 worth of diamonds, and that someone may very well be a passenger on the Bombay Clipper.

The city's District Attorney is murdered, and a newspaper reporter investigates. He starts finding out that everything wasn't quite as cut and dried as it appeared to be.

It is the Christmas Holidays and reformed thief, Boston Blackie goes to Castle Theater to pick up players who will perform for prisoners that are still in prison. He takes a girl with him who has a brother already in prison. She has visited the prison twice in the month, so is not suppose to visit again. However when the group is completed the girl is included as well as Inspector Farrady. One of the clowns in the show is kidnapped and replaced by a con who wants to get even with two ex-partners. Boston Blackie figures out that a con has replaced one of his clowns but is unable to stop him. Blackie's clothes are stolen and a murder is committed. Of course, the Inspector immediately suspects Blackie of being involved. Now it is Blackie's job to find the killer, exonerate himself and help the girl free her brother.

Lloyd Nolan is back as detective Michael Shayne who's in search of a stolen coin.

A detective investigates the mysterious death of a young actress.

World War II espionage drama, starring Preston Foster and Lynn Bari.

Two mysterious seamen come from Alan Rogers' past to blackmail him as he seeks to locate his missing daughters. Ellery Queen is called in by Stewart Cole, Rogers' secretary. Queen goes to the estate and finds one daughter already there and the second one expected. When she arrives, it is Ellery's secretary Nikki Porter posing as the daughter as Ellery had her intercept the real heiress after learning of a plot to swindle Rogers. The blackmailing seamen are killed at a waterfront café after getting the blackmail money, Rogers is suspected and Inspector Queen arrives to arrest him, but he is also found dead.

In this Cornell Woolrich thriller, a man's memory is recovered after being injured by falling construction material. Discovering a year-long lapse, he returns to his old life and discovers a lot of mysterious happenings.

The police arrest a man climbing over the wall of a cemetery after midnight. He claims that he is being blackmailed and is following instructions he received by mail to leave $1000 on a certain grave. It turns out that he's not the only one who got a blackmail letter from the same person--calling himself "The Black Panther"--and it also turns out that all the recipients are connected to an opera company.

A man is framed for embezzlement and runs off to San Francisco. His wife hires Queen to try and track him down before the police get to him.

College students attempt to solve a series of murders on campus while also trying to put together the school's big show.

A remake of the 1927 horror film "The Wizard". Dr. Larry Forbes arrives in a remote French village to visit his fiancée who lives with her scientist father Dr. Renault and his Ape-like manservant Noel. Several Murders coincide with Dr. Forbes arrival, with clues pointing in multiple directions.

A New York doctor (Macdonald Carey) saves a chorus girl (Jean Phillips) from a window ledge, twice, and rounds up racketeers.

Blackie receives a call from a friend who asks him to retrieve some money from his apartment and deliver it to him in California. Performing this good deed, he is accused of theft, but is allowed to proceed to Hollywood to help the police find a lost diamond.

A honeymoon couple in New York for one night of wedded bliss before he's to join the army, become involved with gangsters after they find a cadaver under their bed.

An intrepid radio reporter sets out to track down and expose Nazi agents.

Private eye Jerry Church is hired by a criminal defense lawyer after five mobsters he has gotten acquitted are apparently strangled by a serial killer.

Rural sage Scattergood Baines (Guy Kibbee) shows big-city newsman how to solve a mystery.

An ex-gambler helps a beautiful widow, and becomes involved with a murder, secret agents, and saboteurs.

The host of a whodunit radio show finds himself involved in his own mystery when he awakens to find a woman with a knife in her back in his bedroom.

Private detective Michael Shayne is on the case again, but this time he's stuck on a jury for a murder trial. So, what does he do? Why, he skips out on sequestration in order to solve the case himself!