Mjeteconer Just perfect...

Jonah Abbott There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Kimball Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Jenni Devyn Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

verbusen I came here after watching Bowery At Midnight and being thoroughly entertained, I wanted to know what else I missed from Lugosi after all these years of the standard 30 or so of his films that are wildly known of. I also didn't want to watch something too good in case I wanted to watch something with my wife later, so Murder By Television was chosen as my next film to watch. It's readily available online along with 90% of Lugosi's films since those are public domain material. I'm surprised at all the positive reviews as this is one of his worst films I've ever watched. I guess those are from die hard Lugosi fans? It's not that Lugosi is all that bad, although his accent is horribly thick in this one and he's supposed to be playing a federal agent, yeah OK, but the rest of the cast is horrendous. What really struck me was that for a film made in 1935 it really plays like a film from 1929 or 30. I know it's only a difference of 5 or 6 years but the quality of the film products greatly improved in that time frame even for poverty row productions, just not here. I was thinking it was made earlier and not released until 1935 but Hattie McDaniel dates it to around 1935 I guess. BTW, her role is terrible as a stereotype black maid, oh my god, this film is bad all around, with one exception; it shows actual television equipment from the 30's! So if you are a tech geek into that it's worth viewing for that. I don't think the actual television pictures are real but I'm pretty sure the camera with the rotating sphere is as I read that was one of the methods used to achieve a frame rate. The trivia on this film says it is real equipment from the University of Los Angeles and worth twice the price of the film's cost! Watch it to see Lugosi I guess and for the very early Television equipment and expect to be underwhelmed by the rest. BTW, what was the running gag about the guy who kept getting thrown out? I never caught the punchline to that and the guy was in at least 3 scenes! I was thinking he was a reporter but there had to be some kind of punch line there that is gone from the prints available, although as bad as this film is even with it's jokes maybe that was the only joke. 2 stars (out of 10) for the TV history alone. Ranks as one of my least favorite Lugosi films along with Vampire Over London (1952) which is also unwatchable after 1 time. The Ed Wood Lugosi stuff is much better then this, that's how bad we are talking.

binapiraeus This isn't the kind of movie for today's film fan who just wants old-fashioned mysteries with as much suspense and atmosphere as he can get, neither for those who are looking for sheer, funny entertainment - it's a REAL time document about the development of television (the enormous importance of which people simply don't think about anymore when they turn on their flat screen HD TV to watch a live football game or a thriller full of computer effects), about the fights between the few companies that existed then for every innovation of that new medium (which were of course worth millions at that stage), about the excitement that the first live broadcasts brought to people at that time.It also displays a couple of more or less (in)credible technical and electrical devices like the 'criminal mind detector' or the 'death ray' - which may make us laugh today, but most certainly impressed the audience of the 30s enormously - we always have to take into account how people saw those movies that we've got the privilege to enjoy now, about 80 years later, BACK THEN! The pace of the movie itself is comparatively slow - perhaps deliberately made so in order to enhance the suspense that the audience felt THEN about that incredible live broadcast everybody was awaiting eagerly. The plot, seen as a murder mystery, is made quite complicated by the big number of suspects, and some dialogs may seem a little lengthy; but the philosophic Chinese house boy (a Charlie Chan fan) and the resolute black cook make up for that with quite some comic relief.And then, of course, there is the movie's star - 'the center of attention', as he calls himself at one point humorously: Bela Lugosi. And he CERTAINLY proved once more here with his dominating, simply magnetic, sometimes seemingly dangerous, sometimes charming and gentleman-like performance that he was capable of playing a LOT of other roles than that of the vampire or the demented scientist!

John Wayne Peel When one watches an old B movie from one of the poverty row studios, you should go in cutting a little slack. This picture, even with that mea culpa, does not fare well. Bela Lugosi does an excellent job in the acting department, but up against the passionless talking automatons in this turkey, Huntz Hall would come off as Laurence Olivier.The story is simple. Watching a TV broadcast, a man suddenly chokes and dies on camera. (He probably wanted to get out of this waste of celluloid as soon as possible.) Now, the room full of people are all suspects, and the cops close up the house until the crime is solved.Besides moving along so slowly that the hour length seems interminable, this isn't the only sin the producers made on this curio. The usual banter with racial stereotypes is embarrassing to say the least. From the Chinese houseboy who rattles off Charlie Chan and Confucious sayings so badly you can't understand his words half the time, to Hattie McDaniell slipping up and even using proper English for a moment when the writing for her character has the usual "negro" speech patterns, it is a textbook example of how racist a time the 1930s were.It is probably because of bad movies like this that Mr, Lugosi's career went into such a tailspin that eventually took his life. Yet, he does acquit himself nicely in the acting department here playing not only a scientist but his own twin (though the two Belas never share a scene due, I suspect, to a dismally low budget) The fact that the film is so horrendous and wastes a great opportunity to utilize the budding medium of television And even the solution to the mystery is the pits. I won't give a spoiler here, but there IS no way to spoil this ending. It was pitiful - along with the rest of this script.On top of all this, the copies that exist are so bad and have many jump-cuts throughout. A true shame and waste of the legendary Bela Lugosi.Finally, I wonder if this director had much of a career beyond this joke of a studio that most likely was owned by some theater chain (as many such studios did prior to the anti-trust laws.) He probably went into accounting or some other less creative field.

Zbigniew_Krycsiwiki This could have and should have been a hell of a lot more fun than it is, but instead we're stuck watching a bunch of people standing around talking for an hour about some sort of "death ray" emitted by a new contraption called a television set. Not much happens here, it's just a lot of talk and standing around, and more standing around and more talking. Even Bela Lugosi (playing two characters!) doesn't have anything to work with here, nothing can save this mess. It might hold slight appeal for those who are interested in an early look at both cinema and television, but horror fans and Lugosi fans will be bored to tears with this one. It's static and slow moving.