Mary Ryan, Detective

I enjoyed this small 1949 film starring the lovely Marsha Hunt and directed by Abby Berlin. She was in her 90s when I saw her speak at Paramount's 100th birthday, and she was delightful and looked great.

Here she's a policewoman sent to prison undercover to find about a very sophisticated robbery ring that her roommate is part of.

The assignment turns out to be more complicated than expected. After posing as a maid and stealing at a party, she is whisked off to a turkey farm, the center of the operation, and the police lose her.

The next thing they know, she's part of a big fur heist. Mary stuffed a note in one of the turkeys that was shipped, but her boss (John Litel) keeps brushing off the dutiful citizen who brings it in. Meanwhile, her life is in danger.

Entertaining.

The quick pitch: Policewoman Mary Ryan (Marsha Hunt) goes undercover to infiltrate a gang of thieves - first in prison, later as a member of the robbery crew.

There's nothing about Mary Ryan, Detective that will change your world. Instead, it's a mostly enjoyable little film with the immensely watchable Marsha Hunt as the titular Mary Ryan. Cute, capable, and engaging are a few of the adjectives I'd use to describe Hunt in this film. She has an undeniable screen presence (see the fur robbery set-piece for an example) that works for me. I'm not sure I would have enjoyed the film half as much without Hunt. I've read where she ran afoul of the McCarthy-era anti-communist crowd and found her opportunities limited as a result. How else do you explain the fact that she isn't better known today?

Other things I enjoyed about Mary Ryan, Detective include: snappy direction, good pacing, John Litel, and, thankfully, limited comic relief (I admit, however, that I did chuckle at smoked turkey bit).

Finally, I got a kick out of the whole gang of thieves. They come across about as cordial and polite as a group of Sunday school teachers. Not very realistic, but kind of what I'd expect from a film like Mary Ryan, Detective.

6/10.

Marsha Hunt is a policewoman. Captain John Litel assigns her undercover, to be stuck in a jail with another woman who's stealing jewelry and passing them through an unknown ring. This leads her to the heart of the ring on a turkey farm.

Columbia Pictures was in the process of shutting down their B unit, but hadn't done it yet. Despite a nice cast, Abby Berlin directs for speed, and the set decorations are barebones about the same as in syndicated television shows fromZiv. Still, there sme grace notes in the performances by old pros like Victoria Horne, Katherine Warren, Chester Clute, and Robert Emmett Keane.

This is an enjoyable piece. Once you acknowledge and accept that you have opted to watch a proverbial "B" film, without any great expectations of star stuff and lustre, you settle down to an entertaining sixty-seven minutes without searching for any of the classic touches that underpin crime films of this watershed period in the history of cinema.

The action, which is framed around a very, clever, ingenuous, plotline develops logically and coherently without any complicated twists and turns that normally tease the brain. You are carried along freely and easily with the drift and flow of the current. It is, in the final analysis, a well written tale that is as honest and as believable as they come. You are left, at the end, meditating on pertinent social issues such as child rearing and parenting, police methods and the ugly underbelly of smooth criminal masterminds operating beneath the façade of respectability.

It is a pleasure, for a change, to encounter a crime caper minus the incessant sound of gunfire, tiresome car chases and hackneyed beat jargon. We are exposed, instead, to a detailed step-by-step foray into the carefully worked out and well-executed modus operandi of the criminal mind. Marsha Hunt does justice to her titular role as protagonist as do the others in the supporting cast. I thought that June Vincent could have been given more screen time (she was brilliant in "Dark Angel" three years earlier) but I suppose time and budgetary constraints ruled that out.

Ultimately, the limited sixty-seven minutes are well managed as there are many dark shadows and noirish nuances to be seen. These are lit also up with some genuine moments of humour particularly towards the end.

An enjoyable treat. I was weaned on the great blockbusters of the 40s and 50s. This offering has taught me to respect the so- called humble "B Grader".