The Mystery of Edwin Drood is a haunting film adaptation based on the unfinished novel by Charles Dickens. An opium-addicted choirmaster, John Jasper (Claude Rains), becomes obsessed with a young student named Rosa Bud (Heather Angel). His nephew, Edwin Drood (David Manners), also holds a torch for the girl and asks her to marry him. Circumstances in their small Victorian town grow more perplexing when Drood disappears and the sordid details of Jasper’s secret life come to light. Featuring beautiful sets, lavish costumes and stunning cinematography, this gripping tale remains as mysterious as ever.

***

Charles Dickens' unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, has been a source of speculation and controversy ever since its posthumous publication. Even so, the ending concocted by scenarists John Balderston and Gladys Unger for the 1935 film version of Edwin Drood met with near-unanimous approval from Dickens buffs, who felt that Balderston and Unger had remained faithful to the author's original intention. Claude Rains stars as John Jasper, the seemingly respectable choirmaster of Cloisterham Cathedral. What no one suspects is that Jasper is an opium addict, given to fits of paranoia and jealousy. Pushing him over the edge is the fact that his beautiful ward, Rosa Bud (Heather Angel), has fallen in love with handsome Edwin Drood (David Manners). That Drood is murdered by Jasper is made abundantly clear: it is the mystery of how he was murdered and how Jasper disposed of the body that holds the viewer's interest. The film's relatively short running time required the screenwriters to drop several of Dickens' more colorful supporting characters: of those retained, Francis L. Sullivan is a standout as Mr. Crisparkle. The Mystery of Edwin Drood was transformed into a Broadway musical in 1980s (which offered several alternate endings), then was refilmed in 1993.