El imán de la muerte

Okay, not much can be expected from quickie director Sam Newfield or an independent outfit like Alexander-Stern. Then too, the production never does rise above bare-bones status. However, the script does show imaginative twists plus dashes of snappy dialog. In short, the 60- minutes manages to be better than expected, even if the lighting bill couldn't exceed a buck fifty. So who killed meanie wife Norma, who, all in all, should have stayed dead. That's the whodunit part. But, in a neat twist, the last part turns unexpectedly into a nail-biting suspenser.

Got to admit I didn't recognize cult favorite Hughes in dark hair and even, surprise, surprise, playing a good girl, which she does well. Then too, there's Beaver Cleaver's dad, Beaumont, playing what else but somebody's husband. At least, he doesn't have a couple kids to amusingly cope with. Anyhow, kudos to the writers for rising above the usual formula, and maybe to Newfield for noirish direction. All in all, the little flick's a cut better than the standard programmer.

This is a web of women's plots. Craig's wife invests a fortune in a night club, gets involved with the partner of the affair, starts divorcing Craig and then vanishes for seven years, to turn up again just as he has planned to marry another nicer girl without other engagements. The wife visits the girl and tells her straight out that she cannot marry her husband, because she will now not divorce him. Later she is murdered.

Craig has an alibi too perfect for questioning, as he was at the night club dead drunk that night and later slept it off in the room of Claudia Drake, who is the real actress here. She is also involved with Mrs Craig's partner in the club and knows too much, or is suspected to know too much, so she is also murdered. There are not many left to suspect of all these lovely women murders.

There is a bit of excitement, and you are given plenty of space to keep wondering about the mystery here, but it all runs out rather quickly and does not amount to more than a fairly good B thriller. The police inspector is awful, but the music is good enough.

Hugh Beaumont and Mary Beth Hughes star in The Lady Confesses, a programmer.

The characters played by Hugh Beaumont and Mary Beth Hughes are due to be married. However, his wife shows up after seven years. Then she winds up murdered.

Beaumont is a suspect, but he has a solid alibi as he arrived at a club drunk and slept it off in a dressing room.

Suspicion also falls on the club owner, who knew the wife and borrowed money from her. Hughes gets a job at the club and noses around for info.

Pretty good, and I liked the twist. Hugh some years before he played Beaver's father, had a B movie career. He was a solid leading man.

Mary Beth Hughes and Hugh Beaumont are scheduled to be married as soon as his wife, missing seven years, can be declared dead. Then she shows up at Miss Hughes' apartment, says she's never going to give Beaumont a divorce. That evening she is strangled. Everyone seems to have a fine alibi, but nightclub owner Edmund MacDonald won't admit to seeing Beaumont at his club, even though three other people did.

Film Noir was a genre made for PRC, the cheapest of Poverty Row producers. It required fewer lights, the inevitable Venetian blinds meant there were no views outside windows to show, non-star actors were cheap, and the director of this one, Sam Newfield, although certainly competent, was the brother of PRC's studio chief. Jack Greenhalgh was a skilled cinematographer, so that left the problem of a script, and that was where PRC usually came up short.

Helen Martin's screenplay doesn't show a lack here. I couldn't figure out whodunnit until they told me, and the main actors are good. It's no classic, but I certainly enjoyed it.

This film makes "Detour," also released through PRC, look like "How Green Was My Valley." Yes, it's THAT cheap and phony looking. Yet, the performers are good and the plot has cool twists.

I loved seeing Mary Beth Hughes as a lead. She got third or fifth billing in so many better known noirs. At PRC, she was the leading lady she could be.

Hugh Beaumont is fine as her boyfriend with a past. The scenes of him and other men in silhouette are right off the cover of a dime novel.

The ladies in the movie are all fine. We have Ms. Hughes. Claudia Drake is very effective as a café singer. Much of the action takes place in the joint where she sings: the Club 711. And Barbara Slater is appropriately nasty as Beaumont's wife. She's been gone, thought dead, for seven years and has just reappeared as the story begins.

I have to say, the title makes no sense. No spoilers but I'm not sure why it was chosen. (I see that one of its working titles was "Ladies of the Night." That would have been too controversial. It also would have been too obvious, too blatant. And, again, it would not have really fit.) Also, the print I saw was terrible. I'd have rated it higher had it been restored. And I hope it will be!