You know how bad people wanted television in 1935? When an inventor comes up with a way of sending signals from anywhere, he’s murdered — for television more than by it — and we’re into this detective caper directed by Clifford Sanforth and written by Joseph O’Donnell who mainly worked on cowboy films.

This movie is 54 minutes long — it feels way longer and nothing happens until the last ten minutes of the movie — which is the length that all movies should be. It was originally called The Houghland Murder Case. It’s a bit too talky and not the best mystery ever, but it’s worth watching just to see Bela Lugosi play a good and evil twin.

Keep an eye out for Hattie McDaniel playing a cook a year before she won an Oscar for Gone With the Wind.

There’s a line that claims that television “will make of this Earth a paradise.” What shows would that be?

You can watch this on Tubi.