1954 - GORILLA AT LARGE, entertaining murder mystery with a great gimmick

Yes examine the title.  The film features a guy in a monkey suit but that's not all.  There are actually two people in monkey suits.  The film also has an amazing cast of actors who I thought I would never see in a movie called Gorilla at Large.

Anne Bancroft a two time Tony award, one time Academy award, three time BAFTA award and two time Emmy award winning actress is in full femme-fatale mode.  She's a circus acrobatic working at a seaside carnival.  She runs around in tiny sparkling costumes and vamps any male she can.  She's married to Raymond Burr the owner of the carnival who at this point in his career was usually cast as bad guys.  Bancroft's trapeze act has her performing above a wild gorilla to titillate the audience.  Admittedly this film is very early in her career and I would like to say Gorilla at Large is a companion piece to The Miracle Worker but that would probably be pushing it a bit.

The gorilla is played by George Barrows who specialized in wearing gorilla suits.  Barrows was the gorilla in Robot Monster, Tarzan and His Mate, The Adventures of Captain Africa, Hillbillys in a Haunted House and that unforgettable episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., My Friend the Gorilla. 

Well there's a murder at the carnival so let's call in detective Lee J. Cobb to solve it.  Cobb had worked with Arthur Miller, Elia Kazan, George Cukor and Sidney Lumet.  Cobb has to unravel the murder while constantly chewing on a big gross cigar and firing off the "one-liner" gorilla jokes.  He acts like he is doing stand-up at some comedy club. Also a call out to Lee Marvin as a really stupid cop who is clearly the comedy relief in this film. 

Well it all comes down to the gorilla escaping and terrorizing the crowd on the carnival midway, while carrying Bancroft around.  It's in the great tradition of the ending of King Kong and it you are going to steal from a classic gorilla movie you might as well steal from one of the best.

 Needless to say this film was shot in 3-D so we get lots of shots of things flying at you which of course means nothing on a TV screen.  Gorilla at Large is an extremely entertaining show in the great lore of the B-movie.

The film was written by Leonard Praskins and and Barney Slater, the running time is a brisk 83 minutes. 

2026 - THE SHEEP DETECTIVES, bah bah (what else).

Hugh Jackman is a sheep herder who lives in a caravan in some rural town in England.  He spends all  his days tending to a flock of sheep.  In the evening the sheep gather round and Jackman reads mystery stories to them.  Well surprise surprise when the sheep are by themselves they talk in the Queen's English.  Jackman is murdered and suspicion falls on his estranged daughter from America who has come for a visit.  It's up to the sheep to solve the murder of Jackman and somehow communicate to the police whodunit. 

This is sort of a family film which has a lot of whimsy make that a whole lot of whimsy.  The sheep all have individual personalities and they are voiced by actors British and American actors.  Besides Jackman, Emma Thompson, Nicholas Braun and Conleth Hill are the actual human actors. 

Obviously the sheep are animated.  The director Kyle Balba started his career in film working for Industrial Light and Magic and had animated films like A Bug's Life, Mars Attacks and Monster's Inc. so he knew his way around integrating computer animation with live action. 

There's nothing particularly bad about this film although I have to say I didn't particularly care for it.  The Sheep Detectives just seems to have a very serious case of "the cutes.''  The film at times wallows in it's own sentimentality and cleverness.  Yes it has some funny stuff in it.  However you also have to endure a lot of sheep talk about their place in the universe.  I enjoy fantasy films as much as the next film nerd but even I have my limits.  And come on, this is a film about talking sheep.

 As an aside, I've spent some time around actual sheep and I can state that they are very stupid creatures.

 The film was written by Craig Mazin, the running time is 109 minutes.  

2025 - WAKE UP DEAD MAN: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY, probably the last in the series or maybe not.

A little behind the scenes recap.   Rian Johnson the director/writer released the first film in the series Knives Out in 2019 to theaters.  Johnson committed to two more sequels which went out for bid for the release of the sequels.  The winner of this little bidding war Netflix payed an obscene amount of money to Johnson and his producer along with star Daniel Craig.  After these two sequels I can assure you none of these guys will ever have to work again which includes their wives, children, grandchildren and probably great grandchildren.  Frankly if some company waved millions of dollars at me it would be hard to say no.

For all of the financial wheeling and dealing that went on to get this movie made Wake Up Dead Man turned out fairly well.  Rian Johnson wasn't asleep at the wheel for this film, he wrote a clever script which had some not uninteresting things to say about religion and the existence of god, a plot point you don't usually see in a murder mystery.

 

As usual Johnson went for the off beat casting, Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner and Kerry Washington to name a few all show up in rather offbeat roles.  Daniel Craig is back with his shaky southern accent, as crime solving detective Benoit Blanc.  He's almost a supporting character in this film.  The focus in on a priest accused of murder played by Josh O'Connor who had previously played Prince Charles in the unending Netflix series The Crown.

 

Since this is a murder mystery there will not be spoilers here, this is an enjoyable film with some amusing dialog and so very clever scenes

The running time is a bit long at 144 minutes.  

1967 - IRONSIDE, the TV movie pilot for the series.

The careers of some actors can take an interesting turn, case in point Raymond Burr.  Burr had entered into the movie business in the 1940's and carved out a career playing bad guys.  Probably his most notable role was as Lars Thorwald the wife killer in Rear Window.  Hitchcock with his usual perverse sense of humor had Burr made up to look like his first producer David Selznick who Hitchcock frequently clashed with while making Rebecca, Spellbound and The Paradine Case.  It should also be mentioned that Burr was cast as reporter Steve Martin in the American reedit of Godzilla.  This version of Godzilla was the film responsible for the popularity of the Godzilla character.

 In 1956 Burr moved to television where he was cast as Perry Mason in the long running legal series.  As with all TV series Perry Mason finally ended it's run in 1966.  Burr was now a popular television star which lead him to his next series Ironside the wheelchair bound detective.   The TV movie pilot showed up on Amazon Prime so I thought I would give it a look.  Ironside had Burr playing the chief of detectives of San Francisco who gets shot while on vacation.  Ironside survives the shooting but is left paralyzed. This doesn't stop him from getting back in the crime solving business. His first case being who shot him.  Ironside has a trio of helpers to assist him in solving crimes.  A by the book cop, a beautiful blonde policewoman and in a rather tasteless piece of casting a black guy who's job it is to push him around in a wheelchair.  The Ironside character is basically a reworking of Sherlock Holmes if Sherlock were stuck in a wheelchair.

 

Truth to tell when I watched this series in my very younger days the mysteries on the show were nothing special.  Then again there wasn't a whole lot of choice on what to watch on television in the 1960's since there were only three networks.   Raymond Burr had a great booming voice but he really hams it up as the tough detective who isn't going to let a little thing like the loss of his legs keep him from solving crimes every week.

Ironside the TV movie pilot is a typical Universal Studios pilot from the 1960's.  It was filmed mostly on the back lot, it's loaded with lots of B-movie and TV actors and overall is kind of a cheap looking production.  The mystery isn't really much of a mystery.  Viewing this movie was probably more an exercise in nostalgia if anything it's really kind of a mediocre movie.

The writers were Collier Young and Don Mankiewicz, the running time is 98 minutes. 

1980 - THE MIROR CRACK'D, nice and boring Agatha Christie mystery

 The producers John Brabourne and Richard Goodwin go to the well once again with another Agatha Christie adaptation.  They had considerable financial success with Murder On The Orient Express starring Albert Finny as Hercule Poirot.  Their follow up was Death on the Nile another Hercule Poirot film made money but considerably less than Murder On The Orient Express.  Probably looking for a break from Poirot mysteries the producers hired director Guy Hanilton to film The Mirror Crack'd with Agatha Christie's other popular detective character Jane Marple.

 

At times the producers seemed like they were thumbing their noses up at the mystery. The cast was a real collection of Hollywood has beens. Elizabeth Taylor played an aging film star, Rock Hudson played her husband a hack film director. Kim Novak was cast as Taylor's movie star nemesis and Tony Curtis was the producer of a film that is being shot in Jane Marple's home town, this is an amazing cast of past their prime performers. 

 

Many scenes in the film featured Taylor and Novak trading quips about aging Hollywood movie stars. The film they are making appears to be about the life of Mary Queen of Scots a woman who died at the age of 44.  Taylor at the time was 48 but looked about 60 with years of partying finally starting to catch up with her.  The cameraman must have had his hands full photographing her.  I suspect Agatha Christie would have not been real thrilled by the changes made in her novel.  Angela Lansbury played Jane Marple a character she basically rehashed for her Jessica Fletcher character in her TV series Murder She Wrote.

 

Well anyway we see Miss Marple go through all the expected motions as she solves a couple of murders relating to the movie company.  Guy Hamilton's direction is competent enough. He was always a decent craftsman if not an "auteur" film maker.  The photography is nice and pretty and if you are in the mood to watch a bunch of has been actors hamming it up this film is as good a time killer as any.

The film was written by Jonathan Hales and Barry Sandler, the running time is 105 minutes.

1976 - ST. IVES, a Charles Bronson murder mystery

 Coming a few years after Charles Bronson's movie star making hit Death Wish.  St Ives is a change of pace film for a middle aged star who made his career shooting up lots of movie bad guys.  Bronson somewhat improbably plays a writer who gets involved with a shady businessman (crook?) who uses Bronson to get back some ledgers that will incriminate him to the police.  The businessman is played by of all people John Houseman.  Houseman's associates are played by Jacqueline Bisset in the femme fatale role and Maximillian Schell.

One thing leads to another and a simple exchange of money for the ledgers leads to lots of murders and double crosses.  Bronson is the smooth thinking and talking courier trying to figure things out.  Actually Bronson who doesn't waste a lot of people for a change does a good job playing the writer. The director J. Lee Thompson whose best days were behind him does a competent job putting the film together and the cinematographer Carroll Ballard was an old Hollywood professional who gave the film a nice noir look to it.

 

St. Ives has a good cast,besides the already mention leads.  Character actors, Harris Yulin, Harry Guardino, Dana Elcar and everyone's favorite 1940's actor Elisha Cook Jr. show up.  Bronson had been kicking around Hollywood since 1951 as a character actor himself.  By this time in his career all that experience had made him a very good film actor.

 

The mystery itself is no great shakes, it's the typical mix of obscure clues, lots of dead bodies and the usual withholding of information to the viewer until the very end making it essentially impossible to solve until Bronson explains everything.  Not a great film or a great mystery, however with this cast it's worth a look

The film was written by  Barry Beckerman, the running time is 94 minutes.

1973 - THE LAST OF SHEILA, puzzle film/murder mystery

 No lover of mysteries am I the most annoying thing about them is you really have to pay attention.  At what time did Colonel Mustard go into the library?  The least suspicious person in the room is always the guilty party.  Important information is always held back from the reader until the very end of the story etc.

With that in mind The Last of Sheila is an entertaining story.  The Last of Sheila has an all star 1970's cast and was filmed in the south of France which is not the worst way to spend time on a film location.   James Coburn is a movie producer who's wife is killed in a hit and run during one of those wild Hollywood parties they supposedly are always having.  There are 6 suspects, a talent agent played by Dyan Cannon, an actress played by Raquel Welch and her husband played by Ian McShane and a screenwriter and his wife played by Richard Benjamin and Joan Hackett and James Mason a washed up film director.

 

Coburn's character is a puzzle playing freak who has invited them to his yacht for a cruise where he has arranged a series of real life puzzles during the cruise which will ultimately reveal the killer of his wife.  As is to be expected things don't really go the way he planned, such is life in the movies.

The film was directed by Herbert Ross who usually filmed Neil Simon comedies.  But the real auteurs behind this film are the witty screenwriters, Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins.  They clearly must have enjoyed themselves developing the elaborate clues that they scattered throughout the film.  While The Last of Sheila is a murder mystery one of the bigger mysteries about the film are who these characters are actually based on.  Fans of this film have been speculating about that puzzle for some time.  After watching the film I would have to admit this is a very clever and entertaining film.

The film was written by award winning Broadway composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim along with mister "Norman Bates" himself, Anthony Perkins\.  The running time is 120 minutes.

2000 - THE GIFT, southern gothic story from Sam Raimi

Sam Raimi who's film making style can at times can be considered over the top and frantic actually restrains himself for this film set in Georgia.  The film stars Cate Blanchett as a woman who is apparently endowed with a psychic ability to see into the future.  She gets involved in the murder investigation of a rich woman where her visions eventually lead her to understand what happened to the dead woman.

For a modestly budgeted film Raimi put together a seriously good cast.  Keenau Reeves is a very dangerous redneck, Hillary Swank is his white trash wife.  Greg Kinnear is the nice guy school principal with a tramp of a fiancee played by Katie Holmes.  Gary Cole and J. K. Simmons are the law enforcement officials trying to understand if Blanchett's visions are real or imaginary.

 

But this film is really all about Cate Blanchett who gives another flawless performance as a clairvoyant. Blanchett has the accent and more importantly the character down.  It's even more impressive when you remember she was raised in Australia not exactly a country loaded with American southerners.  Raimi must have realized he was dealing with an impressive performer because he focuses the entire film around her.

 

Raimi is still Raimi so when he needs to put in a scary scene he reverts to some of the tricks he has learned form directing his over the top horror films, however he is good at getting a lot of southern atmosphere into the film.  This is a very good southern gothic genre film.

Written by Billy Bob Thornton and Tom Epperson, the running time is 112 minutes.

1995- DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS, updated 40's Private Eye genre film

This film is based on a series of books by the author Walter Mosley.  Mosley worked in the ever reliable private eye genre set in the 1940's.  The character he created was a black private investigator named Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins in a series of mystery books.

 

In the film version of Mosley's novel  Devil in a Blue Dress this black investigator is played by Denzel Washington who is on the trail of an enigmatic woman who happens to be the mistress of a rich white guy running for mayor of Los Angeles.  Denzel Washington is very good as "Easy" Rollins a man who not only has to endure corrupt policemen, gangsters and politicians but also has to deal with all the racism they subject him to.   Denzel Washington narrates the film in the true 40's private eye tradition.

After getting beaten up numerous times by white cops and gangsters "Easy"sends for his friend "Mouse" played by Don Cheadle for help.  "Mouse" turns out to be one scary guy who carries a minimum of three guns and doesn't mind using them at the slightest provocation. Cheadle gives a great performance as a "friend" who is walking a line between sanity and very crazy.

 

Devil in a Blue Dress has an interesting mystery story, good photography and art direction. There's a real 1040's flavor to the film.  The director Carl Franklin does a good job moving the story along and with Denzel Washington had planned to film more stories about the "Easy" Rollins character but it was not to be.  The film didn't attract the audience it really deserved.  It's always a little depressing when a film of this quality can't seem to connect with an audience.  An excellent film.

Written by Carl Franklin, the running time is 102 minutes.

1963 - THE GIRL HUNTERS - odd ball Mike Hammer mystery

Another Mike Hammer story adapted for the screen with a couple of twists.  Mickey Spillane the author of the Mike Hammer books co-wrote the screenplay.  In an interesting piece of casting Spillane actually played the brutish Hammer himself although although not as brutish as Ralph Meeker in Kiss Me Deadly or Armand Assante in I The Jury.  Still there is plenty of unpleasantness to go around.

In this film Hammer has been on a drunken binge for about seven years since his secretary/lover/housemaid, Velma vanished.  After pulling himself together he gets some clues to Velma's whereabouts which in turn leads him to some kind of commie assassin ring whose leader is a guy called "The Dragon."  Along the way he gets involved with Shirley Eaton probably at the height of her beauty.  She was to follow up this film as the "golden girl" in the Bond film Goldfinger the next year.  The film is loaded in early 1960's paranoia particularity when it comes to the Communist conspiracy.

As a detective Mike Hammer is basically a bull in a china shop while he investigates Velma's disappearance.  There are shootings, a very nasty fight in a barn and a truly sick ending.  But lets get real Spillane is no actor but it is Mickey Spillane playing his legendary character which is interesting. To add to the weirdness the film was shot in England with some location filming in NYC.  This film is no masterpiece but it is entertaining.

 

The screenplay was by Mickey Spillane, Roy Rowland and Robert Fellows, the running time is 98 minutes.

1936 - AFTER THE THIN MAN, the 2nd in the series

This is the second in the The Thin Man series or make that the first sequel.  The Thin Man had much to the surprise of MGM studios been a big hit.  The series combined comedy with a mystery and had the advantage of two MGM stars who were extremely proficient at the sophisticated comedy business, William Powell and Myrna Loy playing Nick and Nora Charles.  That film made a lot of money for MGM so the original writers, director and stars were back with Another Thin Man two years later.

The original film's formula was carefully followed for the most part but this time there was even more  emphasis on the comedy elements of the plot.  Nick and Nora Charles had a dog called Asta and you have to sit through a lot of his shenanigans which sometimes stops the film cold.  The supporting cast is a list of 1930's actors, James Stewart (finally starting to get good roles). Elissa Landi, Sam Levene, Joseph Calleia and George Zucco (as usual planning a mad doctor).  All these actors are at the service of Powell and Loy.

 

The mystery plot for the most part is kind of a "who cares who killed who" story. The entertainment value in the film really belongs to William Powell and Myrna Loy, friends in real life. They play off of each other to perfection.  They are quite amusing together as a married couple who like to have fun while solving this murder mystery.

The film has the usual MGM big studio polish, none of that socially conscious stuff for this studio.  It was always about glamorous stars and glamorous settings.

The film was written by two of MGM's top writers, Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich.  The director was the infamous W. S. Van Dyke.

1971 - PRETTY MAIDS ALL IN A ROW, welcome to the 1970's

A nubile bunch of coeds are dying at Oceanfront High School in California.  A young man who isn't doing well with the teenage girls in his class is about to get an education from substitute teacher Angie Dickinson.   Rock Hudson is the football coach/guidance counselor who is bedding about every other short skirted teenage girl who comes into his office. Finally Telly Savalas basically playing his Kojak detective character is brought in to sort out exactly what is going on at this rather horny high school.  Oh yea, throw in Roddy McDowell and Keenan Wynn and you have this strange AIP studio like sex exploitation film made on a big budget by MGM no less.

 Gene Roddenberry the creator of Star Trek and French director Roger Vadim are responsible for this film if you can call it a film.  Both Roddenberry and Vadim had reputations to put it mildly as men who weren't above exploiting women in front of the camera.  In fact Vadim was quoted as saying the casting of the film was his favorite part of making the film.  Since the film is basically a parade of mini skirted young women you can see where Vadim's interests lie.

 

If anyone comes off decently in this film it's probably Savalas and Roddy McDowell as the clueless principal.  Angie Dickinson was apparently cast as a replacement for Brigitte Bardot.

 

I suppose it goes without saying that this type of film wouldn't be made today but then again can anyone be sure about that nobody went broke underestimating the taste of the movie going public.

 Gene Roddenberry wrote the script and the running time is 95 minutes.

1984 - THE MASKS OF DEATH, an original Sherlock Holmes story

 A real old time actors film if ever there was one.  Peter Cushing in his 70's plays Sherlock Holmes for the last time.  He had played Holmes in Hammer's good version of The Hound of the Baskervilles and in a TV series.  British actor John Mills was Dr. Watson.  Mills was I believe 76 years old when this was filmed.  The rest of the cast is virtually a list of old guy British actors, Ray Milland, Gordon Jackson, Anton Diffring and somewhat incongruously American actress Anne Baxter in the role of Irene Adler.

The plot has Holmes and Watson called out of retirement to find a missing German prince.  But what you really have in this film is a couple of very good veteran actors showing how it's done when it comes to performing.  The film was directed by another old veteran Roy Ward Baker whose career started in 1947 and lasted until 1984.  Cushing had worked with Baker at Hammer so they probably got along very well.

 

The Masks of Death is Cushing's last major role before his retirement. He did some minor work after that but his health had started to decline.  Peter Cushing certainly had an interesting career.  His work at Hammer studios left an indelible mark on the studio and he found a whole new fame as Grand Moff Tarkin when George Lucas cleverly cast him in Star Wars.  A remarkable career.

 

The film was written by Anthony  Hinds and N. J. Crisp.  The running time is 78 minutes.

1989 - PETER GUNN, at first you don't suceed try again.

This is the pilot for a revival of the old Peter Gunn TV series from the late 1950's.  The writer/director Blake Edwards had gone to this well once before with a movie version of his old series called Gunn, with very mixed results.  Here Edwards plan was to revive the series for a 1980's audience

Peter Strauss takes up the role of Peter Gunn, Barbara Williams is his girlfriend/mistress Edie Hart.  Peter Jurasik is Peter Gunn's friend Lt. Jacoby who is basically in the story to provide Gunn with information that will move the plot along.  Edwards also cast his daughter Jennifer Edwards as Peter Gunn's ditsy secretary in a lot of pointless and rather tiresome attempts at humor.

If Edwards had cribbed a lot of his plot for the Gunn movie from his TV series, in this version he actually uses scenes from the Gunn movie in this TV pilot, this is getting a little confusing.

 

Peter Strauss is actually pretty good as Peter Gunn, Barbara Williams does the smoldering girlfriend part about as well as can be expected.  The plot is the old corrupt cops story line with Peter Gunn sorting out who is killing who. 

 I'll give Edwards credit in this version of Peter Gunn he went back to the original series's 1950's setting.  He also loaded enough action to keep the viewer watching.  However ABC decided not to pick up the pilot for a TV series.  There have been no more versions of Peter Gunn since.

The running time for this film is 90 minutes.

1967 - GUNN, attempt to revive an old TV show

The writer and director Blake Edwards decided to bring his Peter Gunn character back from the late 1950's TV graveyard with very mixed results.  Craig Stevens who had played private detective Peter Gunn was as one critic called him the poor man's Cary Grant.  Several of the characters from the original television show notably Herschel Bernardi and Lola Albright didn't return.  In the case of Albright, she was deemed to old to play Peter Gunn's girlfriend.

Blake Edwards mostly known for his comedies had pretty good luck with his noir film Experiment In Terror so tacking a private eye mystery shouldn't have been to hard for him.  However the film is very lazy.  Edwards clearly cribbed a lot of plot points and situations from his old series.  Edwards fascination with cross dressing also shows up in the film.  Edwards was clearly going for a noir feel to Gunn.  Many scenes are filmed at night and with everyone running around in dark suits, at times it's difficult to tell exactly what's going on.

 

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Gunn is an OK time killer from a director who is coasting with this picture.  Perhaps there was an interesting idea for a film rolling around here, maybe something like having a 1950's character trying to adapt to the changing 1960's.  But clearly this wasn't explored.

 

Henry Mancini as usual provided the score for this film, he can be seen performing at a piano in a nightclub scene.

The film was written by Blake Edwards and William Peter Blatty, the running time is 93 minutes.

1989 - FLETCH LIVES, the sequel to Fletch

Let's take a look at the sequel to the 1985 Chevy Chase mystery Fletch, in my opinion one of the better roles that suited his wise ass persona.  The film was again directed by Michael Ritchie one of Hollywood's best satirists  and written by a decent comedy writer Leon Capetanos.  

The first Fletch film was a rather pleasant funny surprise with Chase donning various disguises and accents as he attempts to solve the mystery of a millionaire who wants Fletch to kill him as he is dying of a terminal disease. Chase smart asses him self through that mystery and the film made fairly decent money eventually a sequel was called for.

In this film Fletch travels to Louisiana to claim an inheritance from a deceased relative, he gets himself mixed up with a bike gang, a televangelist, the Klu Klux Klan and a black handy man right out of a Steppin Fetchit film. 

Fletch Lives doesn't measure up to the first film but it has it moments and probably some of the most outrageous Southern stereotypes ever put on screen since Gone With The Wind. Outrageous but at times pretty funny.

Michael Ritchie and Chase manage a few mild satirical shots at Southerners and I suppose the film is as good as a sequel can be while rehashing the best bits of the first film.  Still, I enjoyed Fletch Lives, the running time is a painless 95 minutes.

1944 - MURDER MY SWEET, first shot at a Chandler mystery

The first shot at translating a Raymond Chandler mystery, in this case the film based on Chandler's  Farewell My Lovely came off fairly well.  The screen writer John Paxton used a framing device of Chandler's private detective Philip Marlow being interrogated by the police.  This allowed the Marlow character to narrate the story in a flashback using a lot of Raymond Chandler's hard boiled dialog.  Probably the only misstep was having to work a last minute love story into the film at the end.

The big news with this film was the transformation of singer Dick Powell from one of Busby Berkley's performing pawns in his extravagant Warner Brother's musicals.  Powell does a very good job playing Marlowe.  He gets able assistance from a decent supporting cast, Mike Mazurki as the dumb brute of a gangster, Moose Malone.  Claire Trevor as Helen Grayle the "femme fatal" and Otto Kruger as some sort of phony psychic healer Jules Amthor.  The actor Anne Shirley, real name Dawn Evelyn Paris is Marlowe's love interest Ann Grayle a rather weak role in the film.

 

Considering how confusing these Raymond Chandler stories can be the director Edward Dmytryk does a pretty good job of keeping the plot straight.  The film has lots of noir touches which actually became murder mystery cliches  copied by other detective films.  However Murder My Sweet used them first.

 

The film runs an entertaining 95 minutes, screenplay by John Paxton.