| The Case of the Black Parrot | |
| Director: | Noel M. Smith Frank Fox (dialogue director) |
| Producer: | William Jacobs |
| Screenplay: | Robert E. Kent |
| Based On: | Based on In the Next Room (1923 play) by Eleanor Robeson Belmont and Harriet Ford and The Mystery of the Boule Cabinet (1912 novel) by Burton E. Stevenson |
| Starring: | William Lundigan Maris Wrixon Eddie Foy, Jr. Luli Deste Paul Cavanagh |
| Music: | Bernhard Kaun |
| Cinematography: | Ted D. McCord |
| Editing: | Thomas Pratt |
| Studio: | Warner Bros. |
| Distributor: | Warner Bros. |
| Runtime: | 60 minutes |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
The Case of the Black Parrot is a 1941 American mystery crime film directed by Noel M. Smith and written by Robert E. Kent. The film stars William Lundigan, Maris Wrixon, Eddie Foy, Jr., Luli Deste, Paul Cavanagh and Charles Waldron. The film was released by Warner Bros. on January 11, 1941.[1] Despite the identical title structure, it is not part of the studio's Perry Mason series, which had ended in 1937.
Aboard a ship, newspaper reporter Jim Moore falls for passenger Sandy Vantine and meets her uncle Paul, who is in possession of a small wooden chest that he believes could be a copy made by the mysterious Black Parrot, a notorious art forger. Scotland Yard inspector Colonel Piggott is also aboard, presumably on the Parrot's tail.
Jim proposes to Sandy and meets her relatives and family acquaintances. They include Madame de Charierre, the chest's rightful owner, whose maid Julia had been trying to retrieve it because a secret drawer contained compromising love letters. A police constable named Grady arrives and Jim contacts Piggott as well. Paul and another guest quickly end up dead and Piggott quickly declares everyone in the house to be a suspect.
A second hidden compartment contains priceless diamonds. Jim and Sandy realize just in time that Piggott is the Black Parrot who has been pursuing the jewels all along.
In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic Theodore Strauss wrote: "It is complete with standard equipment—a priceless old cabinet with secret drawers, a beribboned packet of scented letters, veiled women bearing a double identity, muffled figures silhouetted at the library window as the clock chimes midnight, and a butler with a guilt complex (probably because all the scenarists are pointing the finger of suspicion at him, but that doesn't fool us any more). But somehow each moment of suspense is merely a prelude to long-winded deductions in the library. In short, is on the verbose side, though there's no such bird in it."[2]