In this 1936 who done it, an actor pigeonholed into playing Selby, a popular detective from a series of novels, has declared that he quits until an actual murder takes place on his vacation.
Phillip Trent (Edmund Lowe), the actor, is onboard a cruise ship when he runs into a over-excited blonde and a dead body. This encounter turns out to be a publicity stunt planned by his studio alongside the author of the Selby books, Peter Dean. Trent is ready to give Dean a piece of his mind as he finds the books as low-quality cash grabs, only to find that Dean is actually an attractive woman (Elissa Landi) who uses her grandfather’s picture on the back of the books. As she has a good laugh over the fake murder, the pair stumbles over a real murder. A wealthy man in possession of the priceless “dragon” diamond is found stabbed in Trent’s estate room.
And so a rather silly investigation begins. Donovan (Edgar Kennedy), the police sergeant on board, is fed up with Trent, Dean, and a cast of slapstick characters getting in his way. The party includes Williams, the dead man’s valet played by Edmund Gwenn - you know, Santa Claus, Morgan, a studio yes man onboard to build up publicity for the next Selby movie played by Ted Healy, Mrs. Kinney, a ridiculous fan of Trent’s played by Zasu Pitts who is often in the background with her dog and husband, and Li Tai, a Chinese heiress and wife of an Asian actor whose family used to own the diamond. And Li Tai is played by Soo Young, an actual Chinese American actress. Just don’t look too hard at her servant or you’ll be upset with Hollywood once again. Also, a very painful scene where the two leads attempt to do Asian accents.
I’m not going to give away the ending, but Dean as the author living out her books alongside the actor who brought them to life is pretty funny. She can’t help giggling every time the killer says something cheesy that' she’s used in a book. She and Trent escape from danger by using one of the actions sequences she wrote. Throughout the movie, Dean takes notes so she can turn the real-life adventure into one of her novels. She also takes offense when everyone calls them “trash”.
