PodBill Just what I expected

Ariella Broughton It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Cheryl A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Lechuguilla Rarely in films do we find a murder plot that misdirects viewers with the finesse of "Shadows On The Stairs". What a delight. Beginning with one particular early scene, the plot cleverly leads viewers down the garden path. And a second twist delightfully compounds the misdirection.There are eight major characters. At least one is murdered, leaving seven suspects. I was sure I knew who the killer was. I was dead wrong, owing mostly to the shrewdly written script.Most of the action takes place inside a multistory boarding house. People come into and leave rooms rather often. And the script is quite talky. The film has the look and feel of a stage play, except for the first few minutes. The title is a bit misleading, implying noir lighting that doesn't really exist in the film. There's not much in the way of spine-tingling suspense. The main selling point is the stunning ending wherein viewers learn how they have been duped into making multiple false assumptions. Clearly, that upsets some viewers. But one cannot deny that the misdirection is clever.B&W lighting is acceptable though conventional. Background music is a tad manipulative, which is consistent with many films from that era. Casting is fine. Acting inclines toward the exaggerated, yet that is subtly consistent with the underlying story concept. The film does not take itself too seriously, and it should be watched as slightly comical.There's no great thematic depth to the story. The appeal lies entirely in the film's entertainment value. But the surprise ending makes "Shadows On The Stairs" one of the better whodunit mysteries from the 1940s.

Hitchcoc This is a stagy film with a group of idiosyncratic characters, roaming around a boarding house. Everyone is a suspect; everyone has some strange being about them. When a man is murdered, a group of buffoonish police infiltrate the house and act like Pirates of Panzance idiots. Don't even try to talk about motivations or realities because you won't find them here. We have, of course, the handsome smug young man who is "writing his play." If this is what he came up with the cop who implies that he has no profession is probably right. The acting is stilted. Some of the characters are strictly comic and there are those long pauses for us to laugh. Whether we should hold this to today's standards or not isn't the issue. There were well-done films in 1941 as well as now. This just lacked pizazz. And the ending is most disappointing.

classicsoncall I was surprised to see the Warner Brothers/First National name attached to this film; their many movies of the era often presented a social ill as a backdrop to a story headlined by one of their main contract players. "Shadows on the Stairs" seems to have been done with just entertainment value in mind, and it works, up to a point. Had the story finished as the mystery it set out to be I would have been much more satisfied. However the "twist" ending only insures that it never actually occurred, which leaves one feeling somehow cheated.With that off my chest, I'll agree that there were some interesting characters and a curious set up designed to keep the viewer off balance. The opening scene in particular had a Charlie Chan feel to it, complete with dark alleys and a dock scene involving some type of contraband. The denture challenged Miss Snell (Mary Field) and the comical constable (Charles Irwin) provided laughs both intentional and otherwise.The two questions viewers will ask themselves along the way are "What's in the box?" and "Who's under the shawl?". At film's end they are both a moot point of course, but that still leaves one question. Why would the key of any occupant at the Armitage boarding house be able to open all of the rooms?

sol1218 Witty little British Whodunit based on the Frank Vosper play "Murder on the Second Floor" has everyone in the cast suspected of murdering one of the tenants of the Armitage Lodging House where they all live in, but who did it? Joe Reynolds is found stabbed to death in his room and everyone in the lodge may have a good reason to have done him in.Ram Sigh, Turhan Bey, who we saw at the beginning of the film together with Joe, at the London docks, working for an organization to free India from British rule. Singh as a patriot and Reynolds as a profiteer. They later got into an argument at the lodge about the money, $500,000.00, that was supposed to go to that organization. Singh is later attacked in his room by some thug whom he killed, who may have worked for Joe. Sella Armitage, Fredia Inescort, the owner together with her husband Tom, Milles Mender, has been having an affair with Joe. Tom earlier in the movie caught her and Joe embracing without them knowing about it. Did Tom kill Joe in a fit of jealous rage? There's Lucy, Phyllis Barry, the lodge's maid who was also having an affair with Joe behind Stella's back. Did Lucy murder Joe because he broke it off and at the same time did Stella kill Joe for him two-timing her? The last three person residing at the Armitage Lodge are Tom & Stella's daughter Sylvia, Heather Angel, playwright Hugh Bromilow, Bruce Lester, and spinster Phoebe Martis St. John Snell, Mary Field.On the surface the three don't seem to have any reason for killing Joe but there something in the past that we'll find out later in the movie that he did to one, or all, of them to make them murder him. All I can say is that even the great Sherlock Holmes would have a hard time solving this murder mystery much less the audience.