Lobby card for Unknown Blonde listed on EBay.

This week’s mystery movie was the 1934 film Unknown Blonde, with Edward Arnold, Barbara Barondess, Barry Norton, John Miljan, Dorothy Revier, Leila Bennett, Walter Catlett, Helen Jerome Eddy, Claude Gillingwater and Arletta Duncan.

Further information on Unknown Blonde is available from the AFI Catalog.

Unknown Blonde is not commercially available but can be found in obscure corners of the Internet.

::

I picked Unknown Blonde by going through the trades and even for a Pre-Code it’s pretty racy. I chose it mainly for the scene between Barbara Barondess and Franklin Pangborn in which a crooked lawyer (Edward Arnold) pays him to be the figure in an illicit affair to establish grounds for a divorce. Checking into a hotel so they can be “discovered,” Pangborn’s character wants nothing to do with Barondess, who grabs him, throws him on a bed and they collapse in laughter. Not the Franklin Pangborn of J. Pinkerton Snoopington fame, at least for a brief scene.

I can’t imagine that The New York Times bothered with Unknown Blonde and if it did, I would think it did not approve of such seamy misadventures.

Mordaunt Hall does not approve of such goings-on (The New York Times, April 24, 1934):

The players in Unknown Blonde, a film which has reached the Globe screen, had no easy task in coping with the demands of their various roles. Even an actor of Edward Arnold’s established ability flounders in his work in this effusion, the story of which is concerned with a lawyer who, through the reckless extravagance of his young and faithless wife, is impelled to become extraordinarily unscrupulous in his profession. It is a sorry illustration of puppet-dangling, and therefore a tedious attempt to attract attention. Its unsavory details are seldom convincing and most of the incidents are depicted with amateurish abruptness and the employment of all too convenient coincidences.

For Monday, we have a mysterious woman.

Update: This is Leila Bennett.

For “Tricky Tuesday,” we have a mysterious couple. They seem to be having a very good time!

Update: This is Barbara Barondess and Franklin Pangborn doing Pre-Code things.

Brain Trust roll call: Howard Mandelbaum (Monday’s mysterious woman), Mike Hawks (Monday’s mystery woman) and Sheila (Monday’s woman of mystery).

Note to Sylvia: You’re on the right track!

For “Hm Wednesday,” we have a mysterious, pensive fellow.

Update: This is Barry Norton, left, and Clarence Wilson.

Brain Trust roll call: Mike Hawks (mystery movie and Tuesday’s mysterious guests).

For “Aha Thursday,” we have this mysterious fellow and a mysterious companion.

Update: This is Helen Jerome Eddy and Walter Catlett.

Brain Trust roll call: Mike Hawks (Wednesday’s mysterious guests), Sheila (mystery movie, Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s mystery guests) and Megan and Thom (Tuesday’s mysterious man).

For Friday, we have a mystery woman.

Update: This is Arletta Duncan.

And this mysterious couple.

Update: This is Edward Arnold and Dorothy Revier.

Brain Trust roll call: Mary Mallory (mystery movie and all mystery guests), Mike Hawks (Thursday’s mystery guests), B.J. Merholz (Thursday’s mysterious fellow) and Anne Papineau (Thursday’s mystery fellow).