Bodil Ipsen’s Mordets Melodi (US: Murder Melody) is a serial killer whodunit that combines the uniquely European, Decoin-like style of the 1940’s with shades of the earliest Hollywood noirs (1944’s Phantom Lady, for example), flavored with a dash of the Gothic (old dark house, graveyard). One of a small handful of noirs directed by women, and a woman so beloved that Denmark’s version of the Oscars, the Bodil Awards, were named in her honor, Murder Melody stars Gull-Maj Norin as cabaret singer Odette Margot whose real name is Sonja, which also happens to be the name of each recent victim of a serial killer roaming the Copenhagen streets. Nearby witnesses have heard a woman singing a particular song during each murder, the same song Odette performs on stage every night. Her estranged husband Louis Valdini (Angelo Bruun), a famed hypnotist whose stage act she once assisted, resurfaced just before the killings began, which leads a horrified Odette to wonder at her own guilt, perhaps enacting the murders under Valdini’s hypnotic control. In her attempt to unearth the truth, she’s assisted by police detective Baunsø (Peter Nielsen) and lighting master Max Stenberg (Poul Reichhardt) who has always loved Odette from afar. Ipsen brings together a panoply of assets — performances, cinematography, script — to create a rainy, foggy suspense film that fires on all cylinders.