Double Jeopardy

Not in the top 10 of classic film noir but worth watching for 75 minutes.

No cell phones.

The women were not only sensual and elegant but beautiful in those days.

Some Above Average B-Movie Acting keeps Rather Routine Story Alive while Nothing Much in the Way of Action or Suspense Happens.

Republic Studios Completely Shut-Down Four Years Later in 1959. But at this Point was Still Maintaining a Good Looking Low-Budget Production.

The Voluptuous Allison Hayes is Slightly Miscast as a Bland Daughter/Fiance, with Rod Cameron also Askew from His Rugged Screen Persona Playing a Corporate Lawyer.

Robert Armstrong of "King Kong" (1933) Fame is Hardly Stretching it as an Alcoholic and Blackmailer. Jack Kelly is the Antagonist along with Gale Robbins as a Femme Fatale.

It's All Rather Unremarkable but Passable. But Not Much to Recommend.

Allison Hayes is a Couple of Years from Her Iconic Role as a 50 Foot Woman.

This could have been a better film if some money and more time was given to it. It has a solid story as well as better than passable acting. It's a bit of victim of it's time and studio. Republic Pictures had to cut back as TV was taking more revenue leaving less to go around for the motion picture industry. Republic was hard hit. That said the studio delivers a pretty decent late period noir flick. It feels like it was squeezed for time thus some story and character development is rushed. It gets the basics if it moves predictably fast not leaving a lot for the imagination. Definitely a solid enough story to trump most of it's short comings.

Robert Armstrong is a drunk ex-con. He's getting $500 every month from real estate developer John Litel. Armstrong is married to floozy Gale Robbins, who's carrying on with Jack Kelly. Kelly and Miss Robbins want to run to Mexico, so she persuades Armstrong to get ten grand from his mysterious benefactor; the lovers will take the money and run. However, when Litel meets with Armstrong, he says there will be no more money and leaves. Kelly, who's been watching, comes up to Armstrong and tries to take the money he thinks he has, then kills him. Soon enough, the police trace Litel's connection to the dead man and arrest him. Now it's up to Litel's attorney, Rod Cameron, to try to prove him innocent.

It's certainly sleazy enough and complicated enough for a film noir, even though R.G. Springsteen directs it more for speed than atmosphere. The fine cast - which also includes Allison Hayes as Litel's daughter/Cameron's girlfriend and Minerva Urecal as a Marjorie-Main-style landlady, give solid performances. Armstrong is quite convincing as a drunk, Litel as a plutocrat. While CMeron looks a bit too much like a muscular half-back, and the resolution seems a little abrupt, this it a solid little movie.

Yes it's a 'B' movie, probably a 'C', but for those who like a cinematic touch of the tawdry and sad underside of life, this movie isn't half bad.