Hugh Beaumont makes his contribution to the Gumshoe Genre as wise cracking Charter Boat Operator / Private Investigator Dennis O'Brien. When the Charter Boat business is a little slow, O'brien likes to pick up a few extra bucks as a PI. Showing a greater penchant for witty repartee than character judgment and well grounded decision making, O'Brien finds himself at odds with an assortment of characters he meets during the course of the day.
Danger Zone is filmed as two separate stories combined into a feature length film. In Part One O'Brien is duped by a mysterious woman (Virginia Dale) into bidding on her behalf at auction for a suitcase. As it turns out she isn't the only one interested in the suitcase and it's contents. O'Brien is soon up to the lapels of his overcoat in larceny and murder. Part Two finds O'Brien, apparently none the wiser from his previous experience in Part One, bamboozled by a fellow detective (Tom Neal) into escorting a rich socialite to a party. O'Brien is offered a quick fifty bucks to play tag-along to a rich society dame for the evening. So what could go wrong here you ask? As it turns out plenty.The situation goes sideways when O'Brien is accused of murder by the obligatory hard-nosed police Lieutenant (Richard Travis). Fortunately there to assist O'Brien in his travails is his sidekick Prof. Frederick Simpson Schicker (Edward Brophy). Schicker a Runyonesque type character, given to drink and sesquipedalian lingo, keeps an ear out for the word on the street.
Released by Lippert Pictures, this was the first part of a three picture package, each filmed as two separate stories. Lippert was a creative organization, more so financially than artistically, that was able to assimilate name talent that had been cut from their contracts at major studios. Here Lippert filmed two stories that were to be later released as stand alone television episodes. However nothing beyond the original three movies were ever made and as fate would have it, Beaumont never became one of television's legendary detectives.
Danger Zone is a low budget double bill programmer and an oddly constructed one at that. As such it's easy to say "keep moving, nothing to see here" but despite the fact that it lacks the gravitas to be a feature film, it might have made a decent television series given the chance.
