The best Ted Healy’s mystery movies

The overlong but absorbing MGM "B" melodrama Mad Holiday stars Edmund Lowe as vacationing movie idol Philip Trent. Tired of starring in murder mysteries, Trent discovers he can't escape typecasting even on an ocean voyage: one of the passengers is murdered in our hero's cabin. The killing is tied in with a stolen diamond and a seemingly unending supply of suspects. To avoid being arrested himself, Trent teams up with pretty detective novelist "Peter" Dean (Elissa Landi) to solve the mystery. As Trent's wisecracking press agent Mert Morgan, Ted Healey has a wonderful moment when he stumbles over a corpse and asks nonchalantly, "What's the matter with him, he crocked?"

A traitor is lurking somewhere aboard the USS Carolina, and Lt. Tom Randolph is determined to find the offender. First a revolutionary new piece of technology -- an electric firing device -- is sabotaged. Then one of the cruiser's crew is murdered. In order to catch the killer, the captain locks down the ship. With foreign dignitaries, corporate goons and even Tom's girlfriend, Betty, trapped on the vessel, there is no shortage of suspects.

When Philo Vance receives a note that harm will befall Lynn at the casino that night, he takes the threat seriously while the DA dismisses it. At the casino owned by Uncle Kinkaid, Lynn is indeed poisoned under the watchful eye of Philo. However, he recovers, but the same cannot be said for Lynn's wife Virginia, who is at the family home. Only a family member could have poisoned Lynn and Virginia and everyone has their dark motives. Philo will follow the clues and find the perpetrator.

Pop Clark is about to lose his baseball team, unless they can win the pennant so he can pay off debts. He hires ace player Larry Kelly to ensure the victory. As well as rival teams, mobsters are trying to prevent the wins, and as the pennant race nears the end, Pop's star players begin to be killed, on and off the field. Can Larry romance Pop's daughter, win enough games, and still have time to stop a murderer before he strikes more than three times?

Love with a clerk and a robbery by gangsters preoccupy a department store's new owner.