The first must-see film of the year.

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

This film rarity was the last film directed by Tod Browning, who directed Dracula (1931) and FREAKS (1932) as well as several Lon Chaney films. Sadly it turns out to be a surprisingly conventional murder mystery. The main character, played by Robert Young, is an inventor of illusions for stage magician and in his spare time he is a debunker of fake spiritualist mediums. Browning, who used real circus freaks for FREAKS, did not bother to use real stage illusions from the magicians. Instead he uses obvious camera tricks or card tricks in which he plants convenient cards in the performers hands. Fans of Universal horror films of the 30s and 40s will enjoy seeing many familiar faces including Henry Hull of THE WEREWOLF OF London, Gloria Holden of Dracula'S DAUGHTER, and Frank Craven of SON OF Dracula. Also playing is William Demarest and Eddie Acuff. In the end the film really does not work because someone who uses a disguise is just not very well disguised. Rating: 0 on the -4 to +4 scale or 4/10

Back in the 1930s and 40s, a bazillion B-mystery movies were made. Some were quite good, others rather cheap and indifferent. Despite his status as an occasional A-film actor, Robert Young was given the lead in this MGM B--and with very satisfying results.Young plays a debunker and magician named Michael Morgan. His character is a lot like today's Amazing Randi--and not surprisingly, psychics dislike him because he often is able to expose their trickery. He wanders into a strange situation where the trickery is so good that he seems almost ready to believe that these psychics MIGHT be real--especially because their tricks are amazing. How amazing is apparent after a murder occurs--and LOTS of weird things occur, such as folks dying and then seeming to come to life! The film, despite the magic angle, is at heart much like a Charlie Chan, Falcon or Boston Blackie picture. However, its writing is just a bit better as are the rest of the production values. In fact, it's done so well that it really sucks you into the story. Well done all around and a film I nearly gave an 8. And, incidentally, this is director Tod Browning's final film. Although he lived another 23 years, he directed no more films and I'd sure love to know why since so many of his films are brilliant.

I am no scholar of Tod Browning. Therefore, it's not clear to me why his career seems to have ended so early and with this movie. It's a mystery, with a bit of comedy and quite a bit of romance. Robert Young is excellent in the lead role, and he is not an actor I ever liked much. The supporting cast is superb. The spooky looking Gloria Holden is especially effective, though listed way down in the credits.This man directed Dracula, a very famous movie, and Freaks, a unique and endlessly fascinating movie. Why did his career end within the same decade as those two? This is, despite its name leads, a programmer. The late 1930s and the 1940s were filled with hybrids like this. Not much of a swan song, I'd say.

"Miracles for Sale" still attracts interest because it was the last film directed by cult figure Tod Browning. (He contributed to one screenplay after this film, but didn't direct it.)"Miracles for Sale" is SO CLOSE to being a good film. The action takes place at a convention of magicians, and we meet one of each type: there's a card-trick specialist, an escape artist, and so forth. A magician gets murdered in an "impossible" way: obviously, one of the other magicians committed the murder, using some kind of conjuror's trick. But whodunnit, and how?This film violates the most basic rule of magic: never do the same trick twice for the same audience, unless you do it two different ways. In one scene, sitting at a breakfast table, Robert Young casually waves his hand and makes a sugar bowl vanish into thin air. We didn't expect it, so we don't see how he did it. He orders another sugar bowl from the waiter, played by the annoying bit-part actor Chester Clute. When it arrives, Young waves his hand again and makes the second sugar bowl vanish too, by the same method. This time we're expecting it, so we see how he does it ... and you'll be as disappointed as I was.One scene is very eerie for a few seconds, when Young discovers a typewriter busily typing out a death threat ALL BY ITSELF, with no human operator. We see the typewriter's keys moving, with nobody touching them. Spooky! But then we notice that the keys are moving IN SEQUENCE from left to right, so the typewriter can't be typing out any message except QWERTYUIOP ASDFGHJKL. I wish that MGM's special-effects department had worked a little harder on this scene, and made the typewriter keys move randomly.Frank Craven (the original Stage Manager in "Our Town") gives a decent performance here. He has some funny lines about how much he hates New York City, and what a lousy place New York City is. The payoff for this schtick is vaguely amusing. A funnier bit occurs near the end, when Craven gets caught in a Rube Goldberg contraption which forcibly dresses him in a ridiculous costume.Florence Rice, the love interest in this film, is blond and pretty but not very talented. Her father was Grantland Rice, a very popular (and powerful) sportswriter in the 1930s, and her brief film career was largely due to his influence.At one point in "Miracles for Sale", one of this film's cast members appears (in heavy make-up) disguised as another cast member, and we're supposed to be fooled. I spotted the disguise, which helped me solve the mystery. You'll probably spot it too.I give "Miracles for Sale" 6 points out of 10, and one of those points is merely a tribute to Tod Browning.