The Arsenal Stadium Mystery is a 1939 <!--Note the IMDB listing as a 1940 film is wrong - Halliwell's and most other sources list it as 1939--> British mystery film directed by Thorold Dickinson and starring Leslie Banks and Greta Gynt. It was written by Dickinson, Donald Bull, Patrick Kirwan and Alan Hyman, adapted from the 1939 novel of the same title by Leonard Gribble.
Plot
The film is a murder mystery set at the original Arsenal Stadium, Gillespie Road, Highbury, London, the then home of Arsenal Football Club, one of the dominant teams in English football. The backdrop is a friendly match between Arsenal and The Trojans, a fictitious amateur side. One of the Trojans' players drops dead during the match and when it is revealed he has been poisoned, suspicion falls on his teammates as well as his former mistress. Detective Inspector Slade is called in to solve the crime.
- Greta Gynt as Gwen Lee
Kine Weekly wrote: "The drama opens and closes with easily the best football seen on the screen. The Arsenal Stadium is, of course, the venue, and so realistic is the play and impressive the crowd shots that these sequences have, amongst other things, a nostalgic value. The committing of the basic crime and its elucidation also have ingenuity and invention. Few will twig the actual murderer until the final whistle goes. And sporting and crime thrills are not all. There is the humour of Leslie Banks' character to give contrast and contribute to fluid and fascinating continuity. A visit to the Arsenal Stadium and an outstanding comedy thriller in one, a film with the widest possible appeal."
See also
- List of association football films