Sealed Lips

Gangster John Litel has been locked up for four years, but something odd is going on. He seems to have a lot of book knowledge about plants, and knowledge that couldn't have come from books. Under orders, William Gargan investigates, and comes to believe that it's not Litel in prison at all.

It's a an interestingly set-up mystery, and directed in a very low-key fashion by George Waggner from his own script. Frankly, I was surprised at how good it was, but there are a lot of performers here who are fine actors whom Universal could get on the cheap: June Clyde, Anne Nagel, Mary Gordon, Ralf Harald, the ubiquitous Charles Lane. Plus he had Stanley Cortez as his cinematographer. Cortez shoots everything he can with the light pouring through Venetian blinds and similar scrims for as much atmosphere as he can pound into 35 millimeters of film. Cortez was the brother of actor Ricardo Cortez. He spent most of his career lighting some pretty dire B movies, except when he was doing stylish work for some one with vision; Orson Welles, and David Selznick and Charles Laughton made full use of his skills, and then it was back to schlock like THE NEANDERTHAL MAN and THE GHOST IN THE INVISIBLE BIKINI. He was president of the American Society of Cinematographer in the 1980s, and died in 1997, age 89.

This movie is certainly not the one for which director George Waggner will be remembered for.... I guess that's the only "noir" detective film he made.... It's not bad, but just forgettable, bland, with a plot already seen dozens of time before. George Waggner was more comfortable in horror, adventure and western films. I just caught it by chance, and also because I was curious to see what a George Waggner's detective film could look like. But Waggner had no trademark, he was just a yes man, good technician, with no ambition and that's it; So, if you like detective stories, this one is not bad, I repeat, but offers nothing exceptional.