The Crooked Circle (1932 film)
Encyclopedia
The Crooked Circle is a 1932 American film, a comedy-mystery directed by H. Bruce Humberstone
H. Bruce Humberstone
H. Bruce 'Lucky' Humberstone was a movie actor , a script clerk, an assistant director, working with directors such as King Vidor, Edmund Goulding and Allan Dwan and, ultimately, a director.One of twenty-eight founders of the Directors Guild of America, Humberstone worked on several...

.

In 1933, it became notable as the first feature film shown on television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

. In Los Angeles, the Don Lee Broadcasting System
Don Lee (broadcaster)
Donald Musgrave Lee was the exclusive west coast distributor of Cadillac automobiles in the early 20th century. In 1919 Lee purchased the Earl Automobile Works of Hollywood, California. Harley Earl, the son of the company's owner, was kept on as manager...

 showed the film on March 10, 1933 over their experimental station W6XAO
KCBS-TV
KCBS-TV, channel 2, is an owned-and-operated television station of the CBS Television Network, located in Los Angeles, California. KCBS-TV shares its offices and studio facilities with sister station KCAL-TV inside CBS Studio Center in the Studio City section of Los Angeles, and its transmitter...

, transmitting an 80-line resolution picture to a half-dozen or less receiving sets in the greater Los Angeles area.

Characters and story

Amateur detectives in the Sphinx Club are rivals of an evil gang known as the Crooked Circle. When a Sphinx tip leads to an arrest of a Crooked Circle member, they swear revenge on Sphinx member Colonel Theodore Walters (Berton Churchill
Berton Churchill
Berton Churchill was a Canadian actor.Born in Toronto, Ontario. As a young man interested in the theater, he appeared in stock companies as early as 1903 and later headed to New York City where he began an acting career that soon put him on the Broadway stage...

). Nora Rafferty (Zasu Pitts
ZaSu Pitts
ZaSu Pitts was an American actress who starred in many silent dramas and comedies, transitioning to comedy sound films.-Early life:ZaSu Pitts was born in Parsons, Kansas to Rulandus and Nellie Pitts; she was the third of four children...

) complains to Old Dan (Christian Rub
Christian Rub
Christian Rub was known as a character actor from the late 1910s to the early 1950s, and was featured in more than 100 movies, often uncredited. He was born in Passau, Bavaria, Germany. His first appearance was in the movie The Belle of New York...

) about life in creepy Melody Manor. Ben Lyon (as Brand Osborne (Ben Lyon
Ben Lyon
Ben Lyon was an American film actor and a 20th Century Fox studio executive.-Life:Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Lyon entered films in 1918 after a successful appearance on Broadway opposite Jeanne Eagels. He attracted attention in the highly successful film Flaming Youth , and steadily developed into...

) intends to resign from the Sphinx Club, and his replacement is the Indian Yoganda (C. Henry Gordon
C. Henry Gordon
C. Henry Gordon was an American film actor. He appeared in 79 films between 1930 and 1940. He was a Hollywood villain of the 1930s....

), who proclaims, "Evil is on the way." When Rafferty sees Yoganda's turban, she says, "I'm sorry you got a headache, sir. Shall I get you a Bromo-Seltzer
Bromo-Seltzer
Bromo-Seltzer , is an antacid used to relieve pain occurring together with heartburn, upset stomach, or acid indigestion. Originally produced by inventor Isaac E...

?" Policeman Arthur Crimmer (James Gleason
James Gleason
James Austin Gleason was an American actor born in New York City. He was also a playwright and screenwriter.-Career:...

) attempts to straighten out the confusion.

Cast

  • Zasu Pitts
    ZaSu Pitts
    ZaSu Pitts was an American actress who starred in many silent dramas and comedies, transitioning to comedy sound films.-Early life:ZaSu Pitts was born in Parsons, Kansas to Rulandus and Nellie Pitts; she was the third of four children...

     as Nora Rafferty
  • James Gleason
    James Gleason
    James Austin Gleason was an American actor born in New York City. He was also a playwright and screenwriter.-Career:...

     as Arthur Crimmer
  • Ben Lyon
    Ben Lyon
    Ben Lyon was an American film actor and a 20th Century Fox studio executive.-Life:Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Lyon entered films in 1918 after a successful appearance on Broadway opposite Jeanne Eagels. He attracted attention in the highly successful film Flaming Youth , and steadily developed into...

     as Brand Osborne
  • Irene Purcell
    Irene Purcell
    Irene Mary Purcell was an American film actress.She notably appeared opposite William Haines in Just a Gigolo and with Buster Keaton and Jimmy Durante in The Passionate Plumber . A French-language version of the latter film, Le Plombier amoureux, was filmed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer at the same...

     as Thelma Parker
  • C. Henry Gordon
    C. Henry Gordon
    C. Henry Gordon was an American film actor. He appeared in 79 films between 1930 and 1940. He was a Hollywood villain of the 1930s....

     as Yoganda
  • Raymond Hatton
    Raymond Hatton
    Raymond William Hatton was an American movie actor who appeared in almost five hundred movies, including a stint of being paired in 1920s comedies with Wallace Beery....

     as Harmon (The Hermit)
  • Roscoe Karns
    Roscoe Karns
    Roscoe Karns was an American actor. He appeared in nearly 150 films between 1915 and 1964.He played the title role in the popular DuMont Television Network series Rocky King, Inside Detective from 1950 to 1954...

     as Harry Carter
  • Berton Churchill
    Berton Churchill
    Berton Churchill was a Canadian actor.Born in Toronto, Ontario. As a young man interested in the theater, he appeared in stock companies as early as 1903 and later headed to New York City where he began an acting career that soon put him on the Broadway stage...

     as Col. Walters
  • Spencer Charters
    Spencer Charters
    Spencer Charters was an American film actor. He appeared in over 220 films between 1920 and 1943.He was born in Duncannon, Pennsylvania, and died in Hollywood, California by suicide, from a mix of sleeping pills and carbon monoxide poisoning.His first stage work soon after leaving school was a...

     as Kinny
  • Robert Frazer
    Robert Frazer
    rightRobert W. Frazer born Robert William Browne on 29 June 1891 in Worcester, Massachusetts, US, was an American actor who appeared in some 224 shorts and films from the 1910s until his death on 17 August 1944 in Los Angeles, California, US, due to leukemia...

     as The Stranger
  • Ethel Clayton
    Ethel Clayton
    Ethel Clayton was an American actress of the silent film era.-Career:Clayton's screen debut came in 1909, in a short called Justified. She jockeyed her early film appearances with a burgeoning stage career. Her pretty blond looks were reminiscient of the famous Gibson Girl drawings by Charles Dana...

     as Yvonne
  • Frank Reicher
    Frank Reicher
    Frank Reicher , was a German-born American stage and film actor, director and producer.-Early life:Frank Reicher was born in Munich, Germany, the son of actor Emanuel Reicher and Hedwig Kindermann, a popular German prima donna who was a daughter of the famous baritone August Kindermann...

     as Rankin
  • Christian Rub
    Christian Rub
    Christian Rub was known as a character actor from the late 1910s to the early 1950s, and was featured in more than 100 movies, often uncredited. He was born in Passau, Bavaria, Germany. His first appearance was in the movie The Belle of New York...

     as Old Dan
  • Tom Kennedy
    Tom Kennedy (American actor)
    Tom Kennedy was an American actor best known for his roles in Hollywood comedies from the silent days, with such producers as Mack Sennett and Hal Roach, mainly supporting lead comedians such as the four Marx Brothers, WC Fields, Mabel Normand, Shemp Howard and Laurel and Hardy.-Career:For over 50...

     as Mike, the policeman

See also

  • Party Girl
    Party Girl (1995 film)
    Party Girl is a 1995 film directed by Daisy von Scherler Mayer. It is notable as being the first commercial comedy-drama feature film shown in its entirety on the Internet....

    , the first commercial comedy-drama feature film shown on the Internet
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