Numbered Woman

Although directed by cinema pioneer Karl Brown (the man who photographed Birth of a Nation and Intolerance), there's little evidence of his mastery in this quickly-shot crime programmer where Sally Blane plays a nurse whose brother has been made a patsy in a phony investment scheme and who volunteers to go undercover as private nurse to one of the crooks who framed her brother. It takes place in a few shabbily furnished rooms, there's more talk than action, and top-billed Lloyd Hughes, who is usually an ingratiating screen presence, is not in it enough. It was an E.B. Derr production for his Crescent organization, which made and distributed a number of Tom Keene "historical" and frontier films (not really b-westerns) the year before this, some written by John Neville, the author of this film. Derr released this through Monogram, which was likely starved for product after retreating from the merger that formed Republic Pictures and going independent again. I seek out and watch ANY poverty row 1930s film, so I'm used to this kind of thing and I found the film passable, but it's really not for the casual viewer, only the serious collector. If you want to watch an E.B. Derr production released through Monogram from the same period that is worthwhile, try FEMALE FUGITIVE starring Reed Hadley.

When her brother is conned into "borrowing" bearer bonds from his employer, nurse Sally Blane decides to go undercover with the gang that has them in an effort to clear him.

This very cheap E.B. Derr production has a lot of problems, beginning with the set-up. While the District Attorney might cut a deal with the embezzler to get the gang, that's still a crime. And while the story, after the set-up is a good one, the performances are pretty bad. Director Karl Brown may have been an excellent cameraman for D.W. Griffith and a pretty good writer. As a dialogue director, however, he seems to have had a tin ear.

As long as I am piling on the complaints, "leading man" Lloyd Hughes is on screen for about four minutes in all. Seventh-billed Ward Bond, as the detective who keeps arresting everyone has a lot more screen time!

The story, as I noted, is actually pretty good, once you get past the idea that someone who steals $100,000 in bearer bonds is innocent -- a claim, I imagine, to appease the Hays Office; the idea that the police would cut a deal with the small fish to get to the big ones would not have played well with Joe Breen. John T. Neville wrote the script. He had about sixty credits from 1927 through 1946, for a variety of B westerns and Poverty Row crime stories... and NEVER GIVE A SUCKER AN EVEN BREAK.