Marca Fatal

A short, low budget production.

Most of the acting was a bit wooden,but the dialog had it's moments. A police procedural much like the first half of a "Law and Order" episode. NO hunches or lucky coincidences, just good old-fashioned police work - both forensics and leg work solves the case. A well-structured chain of evidence leads detectives to their murder suspect.

Watch for brief appearances of a very young Jack Lord as a police lab assistant.

All-in-all a pretty good movie.

No familiar names at all to movie fans appear in The Tattooed Stranger as this New York based film was shot there with players who more or less made Broadway their beat.

A woman is found dead stripped of all her identity and all they had to go on was a couple of tattoos side by side done at different times.

Forensic detective John Miles is teamed up with beat cop Walter Kinsella to solve this crime, but first they have to find out who before why.. Patricia Barry consulting botanist is on the hunt as well.

The deceased I will say had quite a racket going on and there is someone not happy with it or her.

Nicely done like a CSI episode.

Although a grade B movie with the cast seldom seen elsewhere, this movie packs a punch. First it has good dialogue with a lot of quirky, almost hidden, humor. Best of all it gives the viewer a look at the seedy side of New York City in the early post-WWII era. The police methods may be dated but they are still of historical interest. It's also a good sociological perspective of the period and shows the viewer how times have changed, especially concerning the "art" of tattooing. It is also fast paced and though there's nothing new in the plotting, the story holds the viewer's interest. The acting may not be top notch, but it's also not Joe Namath. Forget its grade B status and just enjoy.

THE TATTOOED STRANGER was made two years after THE NAKED CITY and is obviously strongly influenced by it. Both films start with the murder of a woman and no clues. Both feature a team of a veteran and a neophyte detective. Both emphasize the legwork the young detective has to do, going from store to store throughout the city. In both the young detective tries to catch the killer alone. And both even feature a location with gravestones in the final chase. Yet, still, STRANGER is much more effective in capturing the real, everyday city, and is a memorable film in its own right. THE NAKED CITY rarely looks as though it were filmed with a hidden camera; in that bigger-budget production, the real locations look more like sets, with hired extras, studio camera-work and lighting, etc. (The exception, of course, is the breathtaking finale on the Williamsburg Bridge.) And the foreground action takes precedence; one doesn't get a strong sense of the texture of the city the way one does in STRANGER, where almost the entire film is made on various locations, including The Bowery.

The detection and the crime are quite realistic, and the bit players--including two tattoo experts and various luncheonette owners--seem as though they were pulled off the street. The excellent pacing matches a good script and performances appropriate to the story. The dialogue is sharp: pointing the body out to morgue attendants arriving just after the shootout, "He's over here, just the way you like him." And the young clean-cut cop has a nice sense of what a cop can get away with. In one of those greasy luncheonettes he tells a customer who seems interested in his conversation, "Joe, your ice cream's melting." With its real sense of the seedy atmosphere of the city, its agreeable pacing and crisp dialogue, THE TATTOOED STRANGER is a top notch film in its genre, able to hold its own in comparison to bigger-budgeted films.

This is a great B film from the 1950's, because it deals with forensics just like the present day CSI Series TV shows. The police take it step by step in the laboratory and look at all the evidence with a fine toothed comb! Howard Hughes produced this film for only $124,000 and most of the filming was done in NYC, the Bronx, and Brooklyn, Queens. John Miles,(Detective Frank Tobin),"Gunfighters",'47 was a ex-marine who was able to get a college education and met up with a gal named Patricia Barry,(Patricia White),"Dear Heart",'64, who was able to assist Frank Tobin in his investigation into a young woman who had a Tattoo and was found in Central Park. If you really like B&W Classic B Films, this is a very worth while to just sit back and enjoy from beginning to END!