Afraid to Talk (Merry-Go-Round) (2012)

This is the 1932 B picture. The Cleveland Cinematheque had a retrospective on B-movie genre filmmaker Edward L Cahn. I watched a double feature of this with his Law and Order also from 1932. Cahn worked for a short while as an editor, but then spent his career directing second-tier genre films such as crime, westerns, and later scifi. He never stepped up to making higher budget A pictures. I was curious to see something other than a horror film from Universal of this period, however unfortunately I cannot call this a diamond in the rough. It is not a lump of coal just mediocre. It deals with incredibly corrupt Depression era politicians and a poor bellboy who witnesses criminal activity, wants to come forward, but is threatened from all sides to keep quiet. Has some classic character actors, but Eric Linden in the lead is not very interesting.