Newspaper reporter Hugh Beaumont visits business magnate Russell Hicks, hoping for an interview. Instead he encounters Ann Savage, who starts right in flirting with him.
Her rich husband, she says, is always nagging her about money...she can't divorce him unless she wants to give up everything and she thinks she has earned his dough...so maybe Beaumont would like to help him have an accident? "It wouldn't be an accident then," Beaumont points out. Her reply: "But you could help me make it look like one."
It's really impossible to watch this tawdry murder tale without thinking of Double Indemnity, whose plot it brazenly copies. On its own merits, though, this is not a bad little thriller, featuring some sharp dialog, a compact story line, and a cast of B movie stalwarts:
Hugh Beaumont is quite good, dragged into a plot against his better judgment then trying haplessly to play it cool when his editor assigns him to write about the murder; Charles D. Brown is fine as the editor who smells something fishy; and Ann Savage is very unlikable but completely irresistible as the deadly female.
It's a cheap production but the story moves along swiftly. Savage's role is especially juicy in the passages in which she has to cajole Beaumont. And there are some great dialog exchanges--
Beaumont: "Sure, I know how you feel. But believe me, murder's not the right answer." Savage: "I guess you never really loved me."
