Private eye Richard Conte gets asked by Faye Marlowe to pick up an envelope for her, in exchange for a brooch and a $50 bill for Conte. Suspicious as he is, the money is too good to pass up. The person with the envelope is his business partner Ann Savage, who's doing some blackmailing on the side. They meet up in Conte's apartment for the exchange, but Savage ends up dead, strangled. To avoid trouble, Conte and his friend Mantan Moreland drag the body back to Savage's apartment, after which Conte starts digging. He finds out Marlowe is working under a different name in a mindreading act with Kurt Kreuger, and that their manager Martin Kosleck is also really eager to retrieve the contents of the envelope. But Conte also has to be careful, as the police see him as the #1 suspect in Savage's murder.
This was the first starring role for one of the greats of noir Richard Conte ('Thieves' Highway', 'The Big Combo'), and he is solid as always, altho slightly more energetic/bubbly than his usual more restrained/intense self. Ann Savage's ('Detour') screen time amounts to under 2 minutes, she has 1 scene with Conte before she gets strangled. Marlowe ('Hangover Square') is good as the lady who is not quite who she seems at first, but she's no femme fatale either.
Director Robert Webb (Elvis Presley's 'Love Me Tender'!) and DoP Glen MacWilliams (Hitchock's 'Lifeboat', 'Shock') infuse the movie with some nicely done noir visuals, but the story is rather linear and straight-forward, with very few surprises or twists. In fact, the movie seems cobbled together from elements of more well- known/successful private eye movies like 'The Maltese Falcon' and such. This programmer was never meant to become a classic, but it's a nice time-waster. 6/10
This was the first starring role for one of the greats of noir Richard Conte ('Thieves' Highway', 'The Big Combo'), and he is solid as always, altho slightly more energetic/bubbly than his usual more restrained/intense self. Ann Savage's ('Detour') screen time amounts to under 2 minutes, she has 1 scene with Conte before she gets strangled. Marlowe ('Hangover Square') is good as the lady who is not quite who she seems at first, but she's no femme fatale either.
Director Robert Webb (Elvis Presley's 'Love Me Tender'!) and DoP Glen MacWilliams (Hitchock's 'Lifeboat', 'Shock') infuse the movie with some nicely done noir visuals, but the story is rather linear and straight-forward, with very few surprises or twists. In fact, the movie seems cobbled together from elements of more well- known/successful private eye movies like 'The Maltese Falcon' and such. This programmer was never meant to become a classic, but it's a nice time-waster. 6/10