Who Killed Gail Preston?

1938, Movie, NR, 60 mins

Who Killed Gail Preston?: Review

Hayworth is a nightclub singer who gets bumped off 20 minutes into the story. It takes the remaining screen time for Terry to discover that Gallaudet is the murderer, and that jealousy was his motive. Not particularly memorable, the film is typical of the simplistic mystery programmers of the time. Hedy Lamarr was about to be loosed on the public in ALGIERS and Columbia anticipated the appeal her exotic looks would have by dressing Hayworth in a similar style for this film, capping her head with a dark wig and using makeup designed to resemble Lamarr's features. Ironically, other studios would dress their starlets as Hayworth look-alikes after her success in BLOOD AND SAND. Hayworth had two musical numbers in the film: "It's Twelve O'Clock and All is Not Well" (Milton Drake, Ben Oakland), rendered by a combination of Hayward's voice and that of Gloria Franklin, and "The Greatest Attraction in the World" (Drake, Oakland), which was completely dubbed by Franklin. leave a comment