Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

MartinHafer At UNDER 44 minutes, you wonder if this movie was severely edited down to this length. After all, B-movies ran from 55-65 minutes on average and 44 is amazingly short...too short."The Hat Box Mystery" is from Lippert Productions. When I saw that, I knew that the film couldn't be very good as all the Lippert movies I've seen have been simply terrible. Perhaps being short is a blessing!!Surprisingly, the story does start off very well. During the opening credits, the film suddenly switches to the four leading characters who have broken character! Tom Neal introduces himself and the others and then talks to the audience...and then the credits continue. This is pretty clever. The story that follows isn't.Russ (Nea)l and his sidekick, Harvard (Allan Jenkins), run a failing detective agency. When they are out of the office, their dopey secretary takes a case all on her own...an incredibly suspicious case where a man in obvious disguise gives her a camera hidden in a hatbox and instructs her on how to use it to take a picture of his cheating wife. Not surprisingly, he then rigged it up to a gun and when the dopey lady snaps the picture, she appears to shoot the lady in question. Oops. So, it's up to Russ and Harvard to figure out what really happened.As I already said, since the production is by Lippert it was practically guaranteed to be sub-par...which it was. Fortunately, being short and having a few good moments, it's an inoffensive time-passer...albeit a seriously silly one considering the plot and occasionally bad writing.

bensonmum2 Plot summary from IMDb: "Susan Hart, assistant to private detective Russ Ashton, is given a camera concealed in a hat box and assigned to take a picture of a woman. A gun is accidentally hidden in the box and the woman is killed. Susan is charged with murder, but Russ and his less-than-useful associate, Harvard, get on the case and prove that the fatal shot was fired by the killer from across the street." While I agree with most of this, the gun wasn't "accidentally hidden". It was placed there on purpose so Susan would be charged with murder.The Hat Box Mystery is a fun, little, noir-ish mystery. When I say little, it runs only 44 minutes and the first three or four minutes are taken up introducing, not just the characters, but the actual actors. This is strictly a low-budget B-quickie, but The Hat Box Mystery overcomes some of its budget limitations (static camera, stage-bound sets, uninspired lighting), and delivers a reasonably entertaining story. Tom Neal and Pamela Blake give very nice performances. Allen Jenkins and Virginia Sale provide the comic relief that, unfortunately, misses more than it hits. The supporting cast is adequate. The movie flows fairly nicely, only interrupted by one of Jenkins' gags. Overall, not a bad way to spend 3/4 of an hour.

winner55 We think of television as beginning in the '50s, but that's simply not true.This probably played in theaters as filler, but it is almost certainly a pilot for early television. There is no way else to explain the opening wherein the male lead introduces his supporting cast.There are a number of pilots for unsold TV series still available, including a Sherlock Holmes pilot from the same era. There was even a brief series shot on film along similar lines (I think it was Boston Blackie). In any event, the interesting thing here is that some studios thought they could produce television shows the way they had produced theatrical B-movies. Of course, the broadcast network owners knew better (they knew that TV audiences had a lower "lowest common denominator" than film, and that less money could be spent accordingly).AS a TV pilot, this is actually not so bad - cheap, quick with an interesting twist at the end. The actors are certainly trying their best, and - for television - it is more than competently made.

Mike-764 The Ashton Detective Agency needs money badly, so when Russ Ashton is called away to Washington on a case, secretary Susan Hart takes on an infidelity case where she has to photograph a man's wife as she leaves an apartment using a camera disguised in a hat box. Susan doesn't realize that the camera camouflages a gun, and Mrs. Moreland (the woman) is shot. Ashton returns to find Susan in jail, so he tries to find the man (Stevens) even though he has a vague description. Stevens and his gang find out that Ashton and his sidekick Harvard, are on his trail so he tries to get him out of the way. Ashton then uses Susan as bait to trap the killers in order to prevent her from being tried for murder. Decent programmer with an enjoyable foursome of Neal, Blake, Jenkins, and Sale making the film seem like an OTR mystery show. The pacing of the film is great, with a lot going on considering the film's run time of 44 minutes. The plot is a bit predictable and done before, but the characterizations make it fun. Rating, 7.