Dedos Diabólicos

Lew Ayres' career at MGM was destroyed because he was a conscientious objector to WWII. He actually wanted to be admitted into the service as a medic, but because the Army could not guarantee he would not end up a regular soldier, he chose the objector status. Ultimately he was admitted as a medic, but the publicity hurt him and ended his role in the popular Dr. Kildare series of B movies.

MGM decided to try the popular screen team of Ayres and Lorraine Day in an atmospheric murder mystery in completely different roles with Day as dancer Edwina Brown and Ayres as unemployed actor Oliver Duffy.

In Chicago there have been a series of ax murders. In each case the murderer is an insane person and does not know the victim. Police interrogation gets them nowhere. Oliver Duffy sees Edwina walking home late at night and somebody stalking her. At first she thinks Duffy is a masher, but when it is proven she is being followed he escorts her home and stakes out her fire escape. Duffy sees the guy stalking her approach the fire escape but scares him off. The following night he sets a trap and catches the man, with an ax, who like all of the other perpetrators is insane.

The police put Edwina up in a hotel, and as Duffy is saying his goodbyes, notices that an axe used for fires is missing and chases yet another guy with an axe down the stairs. This proves that somebody is deliberately trying to kill Edwina, and that this is no random attack. But the police don't want to listen to Duffy. From the police he learns that all of the attackers have last names that start with the letter B. In the meantime, Edwina seems to be hiding some deep dark secret from Duffy. So what is the motive of whoever it is going to all of this trouble to kill such a seemingly ordinary girl as Edwina by dispatching seemingly random maniacs to kill seemingly random victims? Watch and find out.

This film was extremely well done. I think I would have believed the immediate chemistry between Day and Ayres even if I had not seen any of the Kildare films. It also has some humor in it as Ayres impersonates an insane person to help catch the killer. Unfortunately his rendition is a bit too authentic for one psychiatrist. It's rare to see a film released and made in 1942 not discuss the war at all, yet this one doesn't. It is a pure murder mystery with lots of twists and turns and maybe it stayed out of mentioning the war to help the film since Ayres was out of favor with the public over his draft status.

I highly recommend this one. Not up to the very end do you really understand everything that is going on. What a shame it is not in the Warner Archive so I can buy a copy and see this whenever I want.

An axe wielding serial killer is on the loose with six murders in Chicago. A shadowy figure pushes a bird seller to kill with an axe. Struggling actor Oliver Duffy (Lew Ayres) notices the suspicious bird seller stalking Edwina Brown (Laraine Day). After more attempts, he suspects someone is targeting her by hypnotizing different people to commit the crimes.

The basic outlandish premise is possible serial killer hunt material. There is a lot of stupidity coming from the police and media. It's much more than the usual trope. It's not the sharpest crime drama but it is better than the standard during that era. Mostly, I like Duffy and I like Edwina despite some cluelessness. Quite frankly, there are a few too many clueless characters in the movie. It actually gets to be funny. Overall, I like this but it's not winning any awards.

I hesitate to call this film a mystery, because the nature of the murders that are plaguing Chicago is known to the viewer from the very beginning. And although it has some traits common to noir, I found the tone of this film to be too light to firmly place it in that genre.

Lew Ayres (as Oliver Duffy) plays an out of work actor who stumbles into a murder plot aimed at Laraine Day (Edwina Brown). She is rather kooky and he seems unable to string two serious lines together. With his help, they capture the axe murderer who attempts to end Laraine's day.

Ayres develops a theory about the nature of the murders, but the police won't listen. They are buffaloed by the hypothesizing of a psychologist--a common theme in the 40s and 50s when audiences seemed intrigued by the mysteries of the human mind and the simple "explanations" that science seemed to offer. For a superior example of this, see "The Bad Seed" from 1956. Hitchcock liked to dabble in these kinds of stories, as in "Spellbound" in 1945.

But this film does have some appeal. And Basil Rathbone, in his role, provides the intensity that was his hallmark.

A struggling actor tries to solve a series of murders, which police believe have been committed by a madman, and finds love in the process.

This starts out as a chiller but fails to live up to its early promise. Despite this it's entertaining enough with good performances from Lew Ayres, Laraine Day and Basil Rathbone.

This is a great little film and Lew Ayres is much under-rated as a leading man because of the Kildare series. he has a light touch that is only overpowered by the classic Basil Rathbone who gives even dross a great deal of class. Enjoy.