Dangereuse enquête

Very implausible plot. What bank is ever inspected by a team of auditors in this way who just suddenly turn up to count the money in each teller's drawer? And wouldn't the teller be casting a careful eye over what the "inspector" was doing, no matter how busy he was? Very odd.

When a bank gets audited, one of the tellers, mike donovan, comes up massively short. The viewer sees exactly what happens, so all the suspense comes from seeing what will happen to him when it is discovered. If he had reported it right away, it wouldn't have looked quite so suspicious, but he waited until the next day to report it. It's mostly good. Lots of suspense as the coppers and bond company hound donovan, and keep him from working anywhere else. Can he ever prove his innocence? Directed by harry schuster, for allied. I had seen his marine raiders, which was pretty good! There are several later films with the same name, but only the 1981 version involves a bank robbery. The mistaken identity bit is quite similar to hitchcock's wrong man, from 1956. But of course, loophole came first! Lead barry sullivan had just made bad and the beautiful, and was busy in hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s. Even has two stars on the walk of fame!

Mike Donovan (Barry Sullivan) is a teller with a problem - a $49,900 shortage (the equivalent of $466,000 in today's money) in his cash for one day. Gus Slavin (Charles McGraw) from the bonding company is sent to investigate. Slavin is sure Mike stole the money, so he's arrested. The cops believe he had a female accomplice.

Everyone believes Mike except Slavin, so the bond company revokes his bond, and he is fired. Slavin also keeps him from keeping other jobs by telling the bosses they've hired a thief.

Slavin figures if he can keep Mike broke, he'll go for the money. Meanwhile Mike and his wife (Dorothy Malone) sell their house and move into a cheaper place.

Mike meanwhile gets a job as a cab driver, and the boss tells Slavin that until Mike is in prison, he's working there. It's in his cab that Mike hears a familiar voice and the wheels start turning. He and his wife devise a plan.

Charles McGraw is fantastic as a relentless investigator who doesn't have a nice bone in his body. He has the strongest role. The revelation is sweet '30s and '40s ingenue Mary Beth Hughes as a hardboiled blonde - she was terrific! Sullivan and Malone are sympathetic characters and play their parts well.

Great seeing all those old '50s cars.

This is a pretty interesting tale of an average Joe bank teller who is wrongly accused of masterminding a robbery at his bank. The story moves along, the acting is good, and the direction is adept. The movie really ignites flames when CHARLES MACGRAW, as a vengeful bail bondsman, and MARY BETH HUGHES, as a platinum blond femme fatale, are on screen. They both light up the screen with their world-wary, jaded, magnetism. I wish the film had been about them instead of rather dull BARRY SULLIVAN. And DOROTHY MALONE is wasted as the dutiful, loyal wife. In one particularly cringe-worthy scene, Sullivan's boss, Jim Starling (DAYTON LUMMIS), physically hold up his hand up to shush Malone when she tries to make a suggestion, and barks, "I'll handle this, Ruthie." That about sums up how Malone's character was written. Don Beddoe is great as the mild-mannered bank teller in over his head with Hughes, and Richard Reeves is a scene-stealer as Sullivan's new boss who has no time for MacGraw!

Barry Sullivan is the chief teller at a bank branch. Checking his figures at the end of the day, he comes up $50,000 short. He rechecks, and goes home to wife Dorothy Malone and his dog, and tells her what happened. She knows he should have reported the shortage before he went home. He tells his boss the first thing Monday, and the bonding company is told. They send Charles McGraw to investigate, and plays tough, finally dragging Sullivan and Miss Malone to the police station. The cops believe Sullivan, who remembers that the auditors had come by in the morning, and had done something odd, asking to recheck the big bills. They send Sullivan home, and try to figure out who the auditor was. Not McGraw. He believes Sullivan did it, and starts hounding him. Sullivan loses his bond and goes through a series of small jobs, each of which McGraw gets him fired from. When Sullivan gets a job at Richard Reeves' can company, he tells McGraw that as long as Sullivan keeps his nose clean, he'll keep his job until he goes to jail.

McGraw is brilliant as the brutal investigator, convinced he is Inspector Javert and suggesting the cops third-degree Sullivan. Miss Malone is the dutiful wife, a couple of years before she would win an Oscar.Don Beddoe, one of those familiar faces from hundreds of movies, is fine as the actual thief, and peroxided Mary Beth Hughes is fine as the viperish dame who has Beddo on the hook.

It's a fine shaky A production from Allied Artists that makes the most of its cast and script, an exercise in the tawdry underworld that Sullivan and perky Dorothy Malone fall into when suspicion falls on them.