The Lady Confesses

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.

Showing on the Moonlight Movies Channel. The only name i recognize in here is Hugh Beaumont... Dad, from Leave it to Beaver. Larry Craig's wife, thought long-dead, shows up and threatens the new girl-friend. then gets bumped off. A couple good songs, probably actually sung by Claudia Drake in this one, since most of the film takes place in a night club. The coppers question everyone, but one guys tells a different story than everyone else. A film noir... except that it feels like even the writers didn't know who dunnit until almost through filming. Suddenly, someone starts doing stuff, and now we know they must be involved. It's pretty good, but gets cheesy right near the end. It's ok. Directed by Sam Newfield, long-time bigshot at PRC film company.

Moderately interesting. Has Hugh Beaumont, the Beave's dad, playing a likable guy who is set to marry a sweet young thing, then has his wife (who disappeared seven years ago) show up. She is murdered and the plot is set in motion. The fiancé begins to investigate things. The problem is that she stands out like a sore thumb. Basically, everyone knows who she is but she is able to impose herself into secure locations and do her thing. There are series of red herrings and obvious suspects, a detective who is calm and vigilant most of the time, ready to protect her. Still, it lacks credibility of plot. When we get to the end, we have it pretty much worked out.

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.

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!