January 26, 2021
Murder on the Blackboard (1934) ***
TCM
Free
Wildcard
Murder on the Blackboard is the first sequel to The Penguin Pool Murder, with the wonderful Edna May Oliver and James Gleason reprising their roles of Miss Witherspoon and Inspector Piper, though they pretend the end of the last film didn’t happen, which I both find annoying and also get it. You can’t change entirely the whole premise of a series of detective stories right on the very first one.
It takes place right after Prohibition ended, but there’s a lot of mischievous stuff about liquor in it, often emphasizing that it’s bonded liquor. It kind of makes me wonder if the script was written before Repeal Day.  It’s pre-Code, after all.
So Miss Witherspoon stumbles across to another dead body, this time at the school where she works, so of course Inspector Piper comes in to investigate, and she insists on helping out, and they solve the case together, because they are the perfect team!
I’m very much looking forward to seeing the rest of the films in the series, but those are coming in the mail, TCM is not showing them.
365 Films in 365 Days 