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This excellent thriller deals with the sale of stolen babies by baby broker racketeers. It is thus more relevant to today, when this problem is much more widespread, than it was in 1949. The plot is sound, the script first rate, and the acting is extremely good. It is interesting to see an early Jeff Chandler performance, in a supporting role, before his hair went prematurely white, and when he was so thin he looked like he needed a good meal. There is some crackling dialogue: 'I couldn't sleep, so I took my gun for a walk,' and 'The idea of you going straight is like a vulture becoming a vegetarian.' Raymond Burr, to whom the latter remark is addressed, is a heavy of suitably sour disposition. Dennis O'Keefe is an excellent clean-cut B hero, and Gale Storm is a rather sombre and expressionless 'good girl' from a small town who has come to the wicked city in search of her murdered sister and her stolen baby; she is convincing, though unexciting. A sinister sub-plot about the father of the two sisters making his daughter get rid of her illegitimate baby seems to have been cut because it was too shocking, but enough of it survives to show that it was clearly once there. Maybe the producers thought they had enough of a social message without getting that grim and frightening their audiences further. The sale of stolen babies was an issue that needed raising, and it was thoroughly portrayed in this film well ahead of its time. The director, Joseph Newman, did an excellent job, and at one point showed off by cutting from a match being struck by one character to a lit match being used by another character. Every thriller director is entitled to at least one arty moment, especially if it hypes the pace of the action, though this was probably in the script by Irwin Gielgud. Probably the few good one-liners constituted the 'extra dialogue' by William Bowers.

Director Joe Newman, about whom I know very little, does a fine job with ABANDONED, extracting excellent performances from male lead Dennis O'Keefe as a reporter who instantly falls in love with Gale Storm, who is looking for her missing sister; dirty gumshoe Raymond Burr, probably the pick of the bunch; and chief villainess Marjorie Rambeau. For a B, this picture boasts an above average cast that includes police boss Jeff Chandler, heavy Mike Mazurki and top male baddy Will Kuluva.

Solid script resting on generally credible and crisp dialogue, attention to detail, and well shot action sequences.

Superb cinematography from William Daniels. Definitely warrants watching.

A gal goes searching for her missing sister and uncovers an illegal baby trade ring. This is unique subject matter for noir, at least I can't recall having seen it before. The film is slightly too light-hearted in tone for the topic, but it's otherwise a pretty good flick. The dialogue is snappy and witty, the story unfolds at a good clip, and the cinematography is quite strong, especially during the more suspenseful scenes. Dennis O'Keefe isn't the most compelling leading man but he has a good stack of noir credits (Raw Deal, T-Men, Woman on the Run) and a sharp line delivery. This is my first experience with Gale Storm, who didn't really impress me but was definitely at least okay. Raymond Burr makes a memorable appearance as the shady private detective. And who do you get when you need someone to beat up Burr? The even more menacing Mike Mazurki, naturally. The score is quite good, too. Unfortunately there's some incredibly unnecessary narration to point out the blatantly obvious, but it's a minor flaw in a solid film.

I had my doubts about bubbly ingénue Gale Storm (Paula) starring in a crime drama. But she's actually well cast and manages an appropriately restrained performance. Here she's the sister of a dead girl who's left a baby under mysterious circumstances. So Paula's investigating with help from brash newsman Sitko (O'Keefe). What they uncover is a ruthless ring that sells newborns and gets rid of mothers who complain.

Like many others of its time, the movie makes good use of LA locations, along with some effective noirish touches. However, these touches are not developed into a prevailing atmosphere, despite the presence of noir icon Raymond Burr (Kerric). Actually, it's hard to recognize Burr since he's either lurking in the shadows or peeking around corners. In my book, the best scene is when Kerric tangles with that other movie heavyweight Mike Mazurki (Hoppe). It's like King Kong taking on Godzilla. Also, the unexpected plot wrinkle with Kerric is a good one.

But my money's on Marjorie Rambeau (Donner). She's scarier than anyone else in a movie loaded with baddies. Too bad she doesn't have a face-off scene with that other formidable actress, Jeanette Nolan (Major Ross). Too bad also, that O'Keefe has drifted into obscurity. He was quite a good actor, at home in either comedy (Up in Mabel's Room {1945}) or drama. Here he's typically persuasive as an aggressive newshound.

All in all, the movie's a better than average crime drama, with a good cast, a crisp narrative, and a suspenseful climax. It's second-tier Universal coming up with better results than usual.

By sheer luck reporter Dennis O'Keefe runs into Gale Storm in town looking for her sister and a baby she gave birth to. Sadly they find her in the morgue, but no trace of the infant. What O'Keefe does notice is a sleazy private eye played by Raymond Burr shadowing Storm.

That's the start of Abandoned a good noir film about a baby adoption racket where the queenpin is society matron Marjorie Rambeau. In a cast of some excellent character players she tops the list. Had this been an A and not a B film Rambeau might have been in Oscar contention, she's that good and that scary.

As for Burr he's really rather stupid and out of his league with Rambeau and her gang. It costs him big time.

Up and coming Jeff Chandler is 3rd billed playing the police chief and friend of O'Keefe. As he did in a few films for Universal Chandler also narrates. Will Kulava and Mike Mazurki play a pair of Rambeau's goons , Meg Randall plays a pregnant border at Rambeau's house and Jeanette Nolan is a socially conscious Salvation Army major.

A good B film from Universal which should be better known.

A young woman arrives in an unnamed town in search of her missing sister, whom she discovers in the morgue registered as a "Jane Doe" and an evident suicide. An investigative reporter befriends her, and together, while they seek the sister's illegitimate child, the pair uncover an illegal baby brokering ring. A taut, well-paced mystery, "Abandoned" features a voice-over reminiscent of television's "Dragnet" and superb black-and-white cinematography by William H. Daniels. Daniels wraps characters in deep shadows, creates striped abstracts from starkly-lit stairways, and cubic patterns that penetrate deep inky corridors. While Irwin Gielgud's screenplay holds attention and builds in suspense, Daniels's captivating images often compete with the plot for attention.

Gale Storm, better known for her comedic talents on early television shows, plays Paula Considine, the sister in search; unfortunately, the role is generic and undemanding, and Storm makes little impression. However, Dennis O'Keefe as Mark Sitko, the aggressive reporter, hits the right notes as a tough relentless investigator. Often enshrouded in William H. Daniel's shadows, burly Raymond Burr is memorable as Kerric, a corrupt private eye, whose only loyalty is to himself. A third-billed Jeff Chandler is effective as the district attorney, and Marjorie Rambeau is appropriately sinister as the two-faced ringleader.

Despite an obviously low budget, "Abandoned" benefits from location filming, which adds a documentary touch, enhanced by narration that implies some truth to the story. A fine cast of "B" players, memorable photography, and steady direction by Joe Newman, a veteran of modestly budgeted second features, together produced an entertaining, engaging film noir that is well worth catching.

Okay, Dennis Okeefe and Gale Storm deliver competent performances and Marjorie Rambeau is effective as the matronly but menacing madam baby broker, but this movie is surely most memorable as the sole instance in which a young Raymond Burr (merely stout here, but still not thin) gets the s$#@ kicked out of him, which alone makes it worth the price of admission. Painfully corny narrative framing sequence at the beginning and the end (where there is a big unintentional laugh), but by and large a straightforward and enjoyable minor noir. At times a bit preachy perhaps and hardly a masterpiece but worth a look when it pops up on TCM late night.

Paula Considine (Gale Storm) goes to the police for her missing sister Mary. Newspaper reporter Mark Sitko (Dennis O'Keefe) is snooping around for a story, but she doesn't want it to go public. He notices that she's being followed by lowlife private eye Kerric (Raymond Burr). It all leads to a baby selling racket.

This is a crime noir B-movie. It's a bit of ripped-from-the-headlines story-telling. It has some noir style. Mostly, it feels like a police TV drama. I love the start with Kerric. As the movie advances, I like it less and less. It's the jokey tone slipping out of the investigation with the authorities. I rather they do more a dark serious tone. Also, there is no way the police would risk putting a reporter undercover just in case he gets made.

If you ask a dozen film experts about what constitutes a movie that is 'film noir', you will likely get a dozen different answers. But a couple things will be constant...the toughness of the plot, the violence of the screenplay and the terrific camerawork and shadows. In this sense, clearly, "Abandoned" would qualify as Noir.

When the film begins, Mark, a nosey reporter (Dennis O'Keefe) notices that a lady is being followed. It seems that a very shady private dick (Raymond Burr) is following Paula (Gale Storm) and Mark intervenes. After chasing away the evil detective, Mark learns from Paula that she's in town looking for her sister...who has been missing for some time. The trail, it turns out, leads to a baby selling racket...and one which apparently killed this sister and stole her baby! Can the pair manage to get a lead on who is behind all this?

I loved the camerawork...particularly in the early portions of the film. The angles and shadows are great...and very moody. I also loved the incredibly violent and gritty ending where evil clearly is punished big time! Overall, a well written and acted film that never is dull and is well worth your time.

Gale Storm's sister was due to have a baby out of wedlock. Now she has disappeared, and there's no sign of the baby. She enlists reporter Dennis O'Keefe, and together they investigate what happened, and the baby-farming racket at the center of the mystery.

Here's a Universal noir directed by B specialist Joseph Newman. It's a bit hysterical in tone, but well put together, with William Daniels as the director of photography, and a sterling cast, including Jeff Chandler as O'Keefe's editor, Raymond Burr and Mike Mazurki as heavies, and Marjorie Rambeau as the sinister head of the ring. It's a bit dated, but very watchable.

A young woman comes to town searching for her sister, who has been lost for some time. They find her at the morgue. Cause of death seems to have been suicide by gassing herself to death in a car. The sister refuses to believe and accept that. Fortunately there is a reporter at hand (Dennis O'Keefe) and they start digging. It proves the deceased sister Mary had a child without a father, caused it to be adopted, then wanted the child back, and was killed for it. There the story starts.

It's a great film with brilliant cinematography and a dialogue for Hollywood to be proud of, there were many films of Hollywood produced like this with the same extremely poignant dialogue, and they are all enjoyable forever. This is one of them and a perfect example as good as Henry Hathaway's best, in the same kind of documentary style, telling a story directly out of reality, without defining the location, like a page out of the "naked city". Dennis O'Keefe was never better, and Jeff Chandler is always more than reliable. Raymond Burr as the ominous crook turning soft and paying for it adds to the brilliance, while perhaps the cinematography gets the first prize.

Thanks to William Bowers' snappy dialogue, William Daniels' harsh and shadowy cinematography (there's one shot of twilight in what looks to be Hancock Park that should be bottled as Eau De Noir), and director Joseph Newman's rapid pacing and handling of action (including a great fight scene between Raymond Burr and Mike Mazurki) this is a most watchable and entertaining noir. Indeed, perhaps too much so for a story centered around illicit baby selling. It's almost as if there is a guard on the set to prevent darker elements, from incest to loneliness (Why is Dennis O'Keefe hanging around the Missing Persons Bureau at night?), from penetrating the viewer's consciousness. Fortunately, there is Margorie Rambeau's wonderful performance as a kind of fallen Pasadena matron turned mother/child abuser, complete with cane that helps with locomotion and breaking up of brawls among her employees, to remind us that we are in the land of moral rot. B minus.

(1949) Abandoned CRIME DRAMA

Paula Considine (Gale Storm) stops by to the police station to report her missing sister, Mary. She is then helped and aided by reporter, Mark Sitko (Dennis O'Keefe) who notices a dirty private investigator, Kerric (Raymond Burr) had been following her. And they all go to the morgue, only to find out Paula's sister had already been pronounced dead, labelled as a suicide. Except that, Paula believes her sister is incapable to take her own life, motivating the reporter Mark to seek assistance from his friend who happens to be the DA named McCrae (Jeff Chandler), together exposing a possible illegal baby racket. An illegal operation that involves many people that includes an old lady who hands out bibles, Mrs. Donner (Marjorie Rambeau), another sleaze name DeCola (Will Kuluva) and his right hand man, Hoppe (Mike Mazurki)

Depicting a particular time when there used to be a baby racket except that this is a fictional setting, with a superficial ending. There is though some scenes I can do without, which even with the running time of 1 hour and 19 minutes. I thought what Paula had done was kind of dumb to go out on her own without informing the police about it.

Gale Storm stars with Dennis O'Keefe and Jeff Chandler in Abandoned from 1949.

Storm plays a young woman who, after her sister is killed, comes to the big city to find her baby.

Dennis O'Keefe is a detective, and two learn of a baby marketing ring. He enlists the help of Jeff Chandler, who is with the police.

Marjorie Rambeau is the head villain, and Raymond Burr is one of her thugs. If you had told me the Rambeau role was played by Ethel Barrymore, I would have believed you. She even had the voice down.

Fairly routine with some good action scenes at the end. There was a scene of a car following another car that went on too long.

Obviously no major Hollywood studio was going to release such a gritty movie in 1949. The subject matter is babies born out of wedlock, then sold off by a nefarious baby broker.

Raymond Burr as one of the henchmen carries his weight, so to speak. So does Marjorie Rambeau as the baby broker. Will Kuluva nearly steals the movie as the mobster in charge of ''protecting" Rambeau's racket.

That brings us to the good guys, in reverse order of billing:

Jeff Chandler as the straight-arrow but barely competent inspector in the DA's office. Maybe the writers intended Chandler to most or less function as O'Keefe's setup man, but the character is a cardboard cutout.

Gale Storm - apparently known as a 1950s TV comedienne - does very well as the damsel in distress. Was she pregnant during sh00ting or did she have the world's ugliest body? I'm pretty sure her overcoat stays buttoned up the entire movie.

And lastly we have headliner Dennis O'Keefe as the nosy newspaper reporter who - as we've seen in hundreds of movies - does more investigative work than the coppers. That's fine, as move tropes go. But the screenwriters also infused his dialogue with snappy one-liners. One or two in a movie can be fine. But it becomes a little much after a while in this movie. He's got more zingers than Rodney Dangerfield, and it sands the edges off a gritty story. It starts to feel like an SCTV spoof starring Dave Thomas as the reporter and Joe Flaherty as the cop. Andrea Martin would have played the dame.

The end result is a movie with extremly adult subject matter, a torture scene and an anti-climactice fight. And a very unsatisfying ending.

As if often the case, I enjoyed Eddie Muller's intro and outro to the movie on TCM's Noir Alley more than I did the actual movie.

I discovered this gem in Leonard Maltin's Turner Classic Movies guide. He'd only given it 2 1/2 stars, but I'm so glad I gave it the chance to prove itself. As others have already detailed, the cinematography, script and performances all make this relatively short film highly enjoyable, and suspenseful. Give it a try if you're looking for a serious topic dramatized in a slightly noir styling with a crime ring at the center of it.

(Here are a few more words to satisfy the IMDB requirement for a 600 character review. I'm keeping mine short and simple since others have already provided many fascinating facts, descriptions and details.)

In Abandoned's opening shot, that iconic edifice, the Los Angeles City Hall, looms menacingly into the night sky. From then on, it's a fast, rough ride through a brutal baby-adoption racket. Gale Storm is best remembered (if at all) as TV's My Little Margie, but she co-starred in a few noirs like Underworld Story and Between Midnight and Dawn; Abandoned is the best of them. She's come to town hunting for her vanished sister, knowing only that there's an out-of-wedlock baby girl involved. Storm links up with Dennis O'Keefe, a newspaper man, and Raymond Burr, a private detective supposedly hired by the missing girl's father back east (an enigmatic specter hanging over the story: Storm confides that her sister left home because "he wouldn't leave us alone"). Turns out that Sis was murdered for developing maternal instincts after having giving the baby up. The web of baby-nappers includes grandmotherly but lethal Marjorie Rambeau, some even less savory characters behind her, and, of course, Burr. Abandoned, despite its Hollywood-"happy" finish, stands as one of the grittier offerings in the noir cycle (Burr's being tortured with matches is one especially painful speck of grit).

Reporter Dennis O'Keefe (Mark) decides to investigate the death of a woman's sister who had recently given birth. He does this because he fancies her. God knows why. The lady in question is Gale Storm (Paula) and she's a wet fish. She is definitely not leading lady material. Anyway, this film is about tracking down a gang who deal in illegal adoptions. It's quite topical given some high profile children who have been snatched subsequent to this film. It's interesting to note just how long this criminal activity has been going on for in such an organized manner. Interesting topic, boring film.

A 1949 breezy film noir starring Dennis O'Keefe. O'Keefe, a reporter, has a hell of a story dropped into his lap when he runs into a woman, Gale Storm, who's searching for her sister. Getting bad news from the morgue, we find out Storm's sister was pregnant & came into the city to have her baby but the pair can't find any hospitals who'll vouch for the birth. Leaving the morgue O'Keefe sees Raymond Burr, a thug he recognizes, & questions him as to his tail. Thinking Storm's sister was involved in something bigger, O'Keefe contacts a police detective, Jeff Chandler, & fills him in & since at this point there's no smoke to this purported fire encourages him to do a little more digging which turns out to a substantial baby mill run by Marjorie Rambeau & Will Kuluva w/strong arm support by muscleman Mike Mazurki. Finding a fellow pregnant woman, Meg Randall, who knew Storm's sister, they device a plan to use Randall as a lure for Rambeau's services which would've gone off w/o a hitch if not for Burr's meddling which spurs on a great last minute dash to save Storm from the bad men (& women). O'Keefe is tops here w/a quip & sharp eye on detail who manages to be on the up & up throughout the narrative who never devolves into sleaze mode just to get a story w/great support by Storm whose pain we feel trying to get to the bottom of this case.

I am not sure that such topic would have been talked about in THE UNTOUCHABLES series, starring Robert Stack. I am not sure at all. The plot is not uninteresting though, it deserved to be evoked. It is a drama, social drama, with film noir elements and atmosphere, but certainly not a crime flick, except in the end. Even the opening credits let you expect a rough, tough crime flick. But no, everything seems to be fixed to announce something else. Good directing, acting, especially from a professional film maker such as Joe Newman. It is not boring and remains really worth watching. Jeff Chandler in an earlier performance, and Mike Mazurki's presence also justify to waste 79 minutes of your precious time. Only the last minutes are really action oriented, as in any crime movie.

We thought it was going to be rather good, at the start we have Gale Storm trying to find her sister and Dennis O'Keefe as a reporter helping her, in the dark and the shadows we see Raymond Burr looking most sinister. It seemed her sister has killed herself but Gale is not happy and the mystery was on. But then we understand there was a baby lost as well but somehow it doesn't get any better. We imagined that there are babies being taken from hospitals and stolen and thought that this was a sensational noir but then it turns rather into a melodrama and not very sensational at all. It was great having Burr and although he made many decent films but only 8 years on and he was on TV with the his popular numerous Perry Mason series.