Blackmail

I hardly believed what I saw when I knew this gumshoe film was directed by Lesley Selander who, as Ray Nazarro made hundreds of B westerns during his career. He alsi gave us CATMAN OF PARIS. So, this private eye topic is not bad for its genre, not worse nor better than the common private detective scheme. It's not my cup of tea but I could make it. And from such a director, specialized in westerns, open spaces, mesas, panhandles, chiefs, cavalry scouts, forts, outlaws, showdowns, I found interesting to discover his other face, this time in the crime film directing. Ok, that's only a one hour flick, produced by Republic Pictures, the best of Poverty Row iindustry....

This is a neat piece of entertainment if you are pressed for time, it will not last for much more than an hour, but that hour will provide you with everything of the crime genre, blackmail, drug poisoning, murder, deceits, fisticuffs galore, car chasing, without any cars breaking down, so they go on forever, a false dame and all in a luxury villa with a swimming pool - you will find the first corpse swimming there. This was the time of the crossfire dialog script writers, William Marshall keeps constantly firing hard shots and getting answers enough, when they don't have to change tunes occasionally to do some hard fighting, no knuckles are busted here, so they just go on fighting forever, keeping their hats on. Beware of the dame. There is only one here, but she also occasionally holds a gun. The ultimate gun fight is saved for the finale.

This review will probably be longer than the film, which clocked in at just over an hour. It is not a bad movie, but there is very little to recommend it. The production values are very cheesy, the director seemed like he was in a hurry to get home for supper, and the actors were definitely in the C level of film. The story was fairly mundane; a Hollywood big shot is getting blackmailed; so who cares? There really is no protagonist in the film. The private investigator is every cliche you have ever heard from a 40s PI. And the "hot number" who is featured on the poster was the ugliest woman I ever saw featured as a starlet. Other than that, the film is watchable, if you have nothing to do for an hour.

Fans of low-budget tough guys detective pictures, such as this one made at Republic in 1947, may have noticed that the name Albert DeMond often appears in their credits. IMDB lists over a 132 credits over the years. One suspects that DeMond was often called in at the last moment to punch up mediocre scripts with his snappy barbs and one-liners. DeMond's signature seems to be wise-cracking dialogue, snarled by someone cynical like hard-boiled PI William Marshall in this fast-paced mystery in which lines like "This gun doesn't shoot marshmallows" get tossed around when the leads actors are not fighting bad guys. In little over an hour of screen time, there are three fights plus a car chase. Some of the minor players are worth your time: the beautiful Stephanie Bachelor as a convincing bad girl, Ben Weldon as the gambling club bartender, and George Gay as the butler. Gay sounds a lot like Peter Lorre, although he was born in St. Petersburg. Director Lesley Selander, better know for his Westerns, does an excellent job of keeping things moving so fast you don't have time to follow the plot.

Oh man, this one was too much fun. Practically a parody of hardboiled detective stories, it has more satiricaly funny lines of dialogue than a Firesign Theatre album! I'm not sure if they thought they were playing it straight or not, but it doesn't matter; just hold onto your gat and have a good time!