Hipocresía

Oh man, this one was too much fun. Practically a parody of hardboiled detective stories, it has more satiricaly funny lines of dialogue than a Firesign Theatre album! I'm not sure if they thought they were playing it straight or not, but it doesn't matter; just hold onto your gat and have a good time!

I could not stop laughing with the horrendous dialog, campy acting, and the never ending fist fight scenes. This will have to go down as the "Plan Nine from Outer Space" of film noir. Some of memorable lines include "Thats not marshmallows coming out of that gun" and "Take that mitt off your mutt" and "I hope you get your hope." In the very long fight scenes, the good guy always keeps his hat on. In what must be a first, a man passes out by simply being pushed into a swimming pool. As expected, the plot is nearly impossible to follow, but it won't matter as the film is a total gas from start to finish. The first and last of the Daniel J. Turner Detective film series.

This review will probably be longer than the film, which clocked in at just over an hour. It is not a bad movie, but there is very little to recommend it. The production values are very cheesy, the director seemed like he was in a hurry to get home for supper, and the actors were definitely in the C level of film. The story was fairly mundane; a Hollywood big shot is getting blackmailed; so who cares? There really is no protagonist in the film. The private investigator is every cliche you have ever heard from a 40s PI. And the "hot number" who is featured on the poster was the ugliest woman I ever saw featured as a starlet. Other than that, the film is watchable, if you have nothing to do for an hour.

William Marshall stars with Adele Mara and Ricardo Cortez in "Blackmail," a B movie from 1947.

Marshall plays Daniel Turner, who has been hired by a wealthy man, Ziggy Cranston(Cortez) to obain some photos for him - he's being blackmailed. Things are strange from the beginning. While he is meeting with Cranston, both men are attacked.

The man runs from Cranston's house and winds up dead. Turner believes that Cranston killed him. He calls the police and, when they arrive, guess what, the body has disappeared.

I have to say, William Marshall's private life was much more exciting than his one-note acting. However, that was the style of the detectives in these B movies - a tough, no nonsense voice and attitude.

This film had a couple of fight scenes that were doozies! Big ones that never seemed to end, and quite exciting. Enjoyable film.

I hardly believed what I saw when I knew this gumshoe film was directed by Lesley Selander who, as Ray Nazarro made hundreds of B westerns during his career. He alsi gave us CATMAN OF PARIS. So, this private eye topic is not bad for its genre, not worse nor better than the common private detective scheme. It's not my cup of tea but I could make it. And from such a director, specialized in westerns, open spaces, mesas, panhandles, chiefs, cavalry scouts, forts, outlaws, showdowns, I found interesting to discover his other face, this time in the crime film directing. Ok, that's only a one hour flick, produced by Republic Pictures, the best of Poverty Row iindustry....