Wonderful! One of Lugosi's best films, but not oddly enough because of either his presence or his performance. True, he handles his role capably and exudes a fair amount of charisma, but his part is not all that large and most of his thunder is stolen by other players, particularly Alexander Carr as the penny-pinching, would-be Romeo of a studio head, Harold Minjir as his put-upon yet uppity assistant, John Wray as an argumentative detective, and last, but by no means last, David Manners as a charmingly resourceful buttinsky who is only too happy to help our siren of a heroine, Adrienne Ames, avert any and all pitfalls. For a while there it looks like even Jimmy Donlin is going to garner more attention than Bela, but his role fades away as the film progresses.Mind you, for silent movie fans, The Death Kiss is something of a windfall. Barbara Bedford, our lovely heroine of Tumbleweeds and The Notorious Lady, can be spotted early on as a script girl (she has no dialog, alas), while her director, King Baggot, has a sizable scene as a helpful electrician. Frank O'Connor, the director of Devil's Island and The Block Signal, can be spotted in a number of sequences as a uniformed policeman, while Neely Edwards who had an extensive silent career (over 140 films) enjoys a key scene with David Manners. Atmospherically directed in an admirably fluid style by Edwin L. Marin (in his directorial debut), The Death Kiss emerges as a fascinatingly true-to-life, ingeniously suspenseful murder mystery. Not the least of its attractions, of course, are the many behind-the-scenes glimpses of long-vanished Tiffany Studios. (I always thought it was a hole-in-the-wall outfit. I was dead wrong. It's huge!)

Now THERE's a murder mystery for real film buffs: a movie star is murdered during the shooting of the scene in which he's supposed to be 'murdered' by extras using blank bullets... Now, since this star had been linked to almost all the ladies on the set in one way or another, the case becomes complicated: first the suspicion falls on his co-star and ex-wife, but then it could have been anyone from the gaffer (the head electrician for non-movie experts) or the director to the manager or the producer or the scriptwriter - who takes on a little investigation of his own...A real FEAST for Hollywood fans in many ways: first, almost the whole movie is set - on a set. So we get to see 'in close-up shot' how a film is made and what's going on behind the camera. Second, of course, in this 'little' independent movie we find no less than THREE of the stars of Universal's smash horror hit "Dracula" the previous year: Bela Lugosi as the manager, Edward van Sloan as the director, and David Manners as the scriptwriter - we get to know them in a COMPLETELY different way, that is.And last but not least, this is simply one of those classic murder mysteries with lots of suspects and a VERY twisted plot - good old Hollywood crime entertainment at its best!

"The Death Kiss," a humor-laced murder mystery set in a Hollywood movie studio, unspools at a snappy pace offering one delight after another: a striking opening, followed by the introduction of a succession of colorful characters played by Everett Van Sloan, Bela Lugosi, Harold Minjir, Alexander Carr, the photogenic Adrienne Ames and David Manners as a studio writer who tries to figure out whodunit. There is a loose, breezy feel, with the camera tracking and panning freely not only around the movie studio but into its nooks and crannies as the dialogue zings with amusing exchanges and wisecracks. There are even hand-tinted flames, gunshots and flashlight beams during various action sequences.

Freshman director Edwin L. Marin's murder mystery "The Death Kiss" qualifies as a good crime yarn about a shooting at a film studio during a scene in a gangster movie. Clocking in at 71 minutes, this whodunit is another one of those where an amateur finds all the clues and solves the murder because the authorities cannot. Marin doesn't squander a second, and scenarists Gordon Kahn of "X Marks the Spot" and Barry Barringer of "Murder at Dawn" keep you guessing up until the last few minutes as they contrive one red herring with another to throw you off the scent. A scenarist is the sleuth who clears the reputation of an ex-wife who had everything to gain with the death of her former husband. Interesting, Bela Lugosi plays a studio producer. Although the Lugosi character hovers over most of the scenes, he is not the culprit. Nevertheless, Marin and his writers use him as a red herring, too. Of course, the police don't appreciate our protagonist sticking his nose into their criminal investigation. Not only does the snooping Drew locate the bullet that killed actor Myles Brent during the lensing of one scene, but he also discovers the gun used in the murder. The cast is first-rate, with handsome David Manners playing a studio scribe. Once again, Vincent Barrett provides the comic relief as a studio cop named Officer Gulliver. The dialogue is pretty snappy, too. An interesting bit of trivia about "The Death Kiss" is that it reunites three actors who appeared in Todd Browning's "Dracula." David Manners, Bela Lugosi, and Edward Van Sloan co-starred in "Dracula." Efficiently made, "The Death Kiss" is a worthwhile whodunit with some occasionally scintillating dialogue. Furthermore, this opus furnishes audiences with an idea about how films are produced and the various roles that go into a film production.