Murder on a Honeymoon (1935)
Directed by Lloyd Corrigan

Film Review

Edna May Oliver bows out in magnificent style in this, her third and final outing as amateur sleuth Hildegarde Withers.   After Penguin Pool Murder (1932) and Murder on the Blackboard (1934), the indomitable Miss Withers is faced with her most complex case yet (with no shortage of plausible suspects, but alas no cute penguins).  With the spry old spinster having to suffer such ignominies as being labelled "horse face" and locked in a cupboard you can see why Miss Oliver gave up the part.  Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot never got this sort of abuse.

As in the previous two Hildegarde Withers films, the fun lies not in the murder mystery plot (which, this time, is so fiendishly convoluted that it's hardly worth trying to unravel it) but in the abrasive repartee between Miss Withers and the bungling police chief Oscar Piper (James Gleason).  By this stage in their career, the two characters have managed to tone down the mutual Mickey taking and a grudging tenderness is starting to creep into their relationship - another reason why Miss Oliver may have felt it was time to move on.  The series was by now so popular that it had to continue.  RKO drafted in Helen Broderick and later ZaSu Pitts to take on the role of Miss Withers - needless-to-say, neither came anywhere near to matching the excellence and hilarity of Edna May Oliver's portrayal.

Film Synopsis

Schoolteacher Hildegarde Withers is taking a short flight to Catalina Island when she witnesses a fellow air passenger suddenly drop dead.  Moments before his death, the man introduced himself as Roswell T. Forrest, and Miss Withers is convinced he was murdered by someone else on the plane.  The suspects include a pair of newly weds, a film director, a struggling actress and a former rum smuggler, none of whom has any obvious connection with the dead man.  With the local police refusing to take her seriously, Miss Withers calls in her old friend, Inspector Oscar Piper, who reveals that Forrest was due to testify in court against a notorious crime syndicate.  Now that the motive for the murder has been established, all that remains is to determine who did it.  An autopsy reveals that Forrest was poisoned - but by whom?