Main Cast: Bette Davis, Lewis Stone, Pat O'Brien, Glenda Farrell, Allen Jenkins
Release Year: 1933
Country: US
Run Time: 75 minutes
Plot
Although claiming to be based on actual cases, this mild crime drama appears to have been derived more from a screenwriter's manual than a police blotter. Newly transferred from robbery to missing persons, glib Butch Saunders (Pat O'Brien) is like the proverbial bull in a china shop at first, but quickly gets the hang of things. In walks pretty Norma Roberts (Bette Davis), claiming to be missing her new husband, whom she accuses of shipping out. Despite being married to nagging Belle (Glenda Farrell), Butch falls in love with the dame, until, that is, he learns the truth. Norma's last name isn't Roberts at all, but Williams, and she is wanted in Chicago for the murder of her boss, Therme Roberts. Begging Butch to cover for her -- "just for a little while. I'll explain everything later" -- Norma does a disappearing act herself and makes it look like suicide. But Butch refuses to buy the act and with the help of his boss, Captain Webb (Lewis Stone), the fast-talking cop arranges for a corpse to be lying in state at a local funeral parlor under the name of Norma Williams, hoping to flush out the real Norma. Norma walks right into the trap with another cockamamie story at the ready. But this time, it may just be the truth and Butch becomes determined to clear the lady of murder. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
Review
Bette Davis later claimed to have disliked making Bureau of Missing Persons, but she is fine in it and even gets to change her hair color from bleach blond to brunette within a reel or two. The Warner Bros. stock company is working at a fever pitch this time around and the lines come fast and furious. One of the highlights is Allen Jenkins' remark to sour-faced funeral director Charles Sellon: "How's business these days? Has the depression bothered you much?" ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
Bureau of Missing Persons is a 1933 Americandrama film with comic overtones directed by Roy Del Ruth. The screenplay by Robert Presnell is based on a story by Carol Bird adapted from the book Missing Men by former New York City police captain John H. Ayres.
Amid vignettes involving a philandering husband who fakes amnesia, a child prodigy who yearns to live a normal life, an aging bachelor whose housekeeper has disappeared, and an old lady whose daughter has run away, the primary plot line focuses on brash detective Butch Saunders, who is assigned to find missing Chicagobanker Therme Roberts. Butch finds himself attracted to the man's wife Norma, despite the fact they're both married, so when his superior, Captain Webb, tells him she really is Norma Phillips and the man she claims is missing is not her husband but the person she has been accused of murdering, he doesn't believe him. Norma fakes her suicide by drowning and disappears, but can't resist returning when Butch stages her funeral in the hope she'll surface. Not only she but the missing Roberts, as well, turn up at the services. Norma tells Butch she once was Roberts' secretary, and he killed his mentally disturbed twinbrother and assumed his identity in order to avoid embezzlement charges. Roberts denies her accusations, but Webb tricks him into admitting his guilt. Norma is cleared and, when Butch learns his wife Belle never divorced her first husband, the two are free to wed.
Production notes
In order to promote the film, Warner Bros. promised in advertisements to pay $10,000 to Manhattan's missing Judge Joseph F. Crater if he claimed it in person at the box office [1].
In 1936, the film was reissued with Bette Davis given top billing, since by then the one-time contract player had become the studio's leading female star.[2]
The film was the second on-screen pairing of Davis and Pat O'Brien, who had appeared Hell's House the previous year.
Variety called it "pretty fair entertainment . . . steered clear of over sombreness or becoming too morbid" and added, "Just when it threatens to become banal, excellent trouping and some inspired dialoguing snap it back into proper gait." [3]
Time said, "this is as engrossing as the normal detective cinema, but what gives Bureau of Missing Persons substance and makes it interesting journalism as well as adequate fiction are convincing shots of how a Missing Persons Bureau works." [4]
Time Out London says, "With Del Ruth directing at screwball pace, things sometimes get a little too jokey; but at its best, in noting the obsessive quirks developed by officers, it has some claim to be considered an ancestor of Hill Street Blues." [5]
TV Guide describes it as an "amusing mystery film that is genuinely complex and intriguing, though it does take some slapstick turns. Davis fans will be disappointed as her headlining part is relatively small." [6]
