Grand Central Murder

For some reason, I thought I recommended the movie Grand Central Murder, which is airing tomorrow morning at 6:00 AM on TCM, before. A Google search claims I haven't. It's one of those many, many B mysteries from the early 1940s, this one starring Van Heflin as a detective who investigates a murder that takes place in a private rail car that's currently in the bowels of Grand Central Station.

Heflin plays one of those wisecracking, slightly arrogant detectives, much like the Michael Shayne character I mentioned last month in Dressed to Kill. Not only is there that sort of detective; there's also a bumbling police investigator (played here by Sam Levene), and a story where anybody could have done it. That having been said, Grand Central Murder is interesting in part for Heflin's role, just before his career really took off with Johnny Eager. Another reason is that MGM's production values make this look better than just a B movie, especially the bowels of the station and the room where all the trains are routed.

Perhaps the reason I thought I might have blogged about it before is that Van Heflin made a related movie the same year, Kid Glove Killer, which I did blog about back when Ava Gardner was Star of the Month on TCM. In fact, I think I saw the two Heflin films back-to-back the first time I saw them before, which would be a good way to see them. (In fact, putting the two of them together in a DVD set wouldn't be such a bad idea.)