Uma Aventura Fatal

Sam (Preston Foster) is sent to look over the accounts at a bank managed by Earl (John Shepperd). He finds nothing unusual and is preparing to return home when Earl's interfering secretary Betty (Anabel Shaw) points out to him that £3,000 has gone missing. Can Sam get to the bottom of this embezzlement....?

Get past her strange accent and Signe Hasse is good as Earl's wife "Francine". Preston Foster also does well in the lead role although we are asked to bend belief with his character when he digs into his own pocket to pay for someone else's debt. We also have to put up with a do-gooder, jobsworth, goody-goody, tell-tale tit in Anabel Shaw's portrayal of Betty. I hate people like her! She sticks her nose in when she really shouldn't care.

Although the film moves along at a good pace, nothing ever seems to happen. It's just all a bit boring........and a bit confusing.

Preston Foster returns from the war to discover he no longer has his job as chief investigator of a large bank. Instead, he's now the regional manager. Making a tour of the branches, he finds his brother, Shepperd Strudwick, is the manager of a branch, and married to Signe Hasso, with whom Foster has had an affair. Her free-spending ways have driven Strudwick wild, so wild that he has given up his cautious ways and speculated in a can't miss deal. When the deal misses, he confesses to Miss Hasso that he used the bank's money.

It's a film noir with all the hallmarks of the genre, from the story being told in flashback, to the femme fatale, to the camerawork by Harry Jackson that grows darker and shadow-filled as the story progresses. It's not director Ray McCarey's strong suit, but with a competent cast and crew, it's a well told, if already a bit stereotyped story.

Not listed in many reference books, this fast-moving and absorbing crime melodrama is significant for its venal, scheming femme fatale portrayed in offbeat fashion by Signe Hasso. Rather colorlessly directed by Leo McCarey's brother, it lacks the dark, fatalistic tone that would have made it a memorable noir along the lines of Blonde Ice or Decoy. Still, the weaving of the black widow's treacherous web makes it a highly watchable item, with some good sets and camera set-ups thrown in. Recommended for B-movie fans, noir completists, and misogynists.

As I've heard people say, 'one bad apple spoils the rest of the bunch', really applies to this film about a woman who destroys people's lives so nonchalantly, quickly and totally without conscience. Not available on video and rarely seen on TV this film deals with missing funds in the banking industry and how an innocent bystander nearly pays for it all. Told in a series of flashbacks this is a great mystery. Enjoy!