directed by Edward Cahn
This is a 1950 crime movie with some noir elements. The film has underdeveloped plotting and writing though the acting isn't bad. Like many movies from back then it has an intelligent motivated female lead who is neither stupid nor only an appendage to men.
The heroine gets in over her head and makes some mistakes but she's no dummy. And that's more that can be said for some of the gangsters and molls she encounters.
Laura Mansfield (Joyce MacKenzie) is an attractive coed who is home for spring break. One night as Laura and her father Arthur Mansfield (Franklyn Farnum) relax the doorbell rings. Arthur goes to answer it and is immediately shot dead by the taxi driver/moonlighting hitman Jackie Wales (Stanley Clements-former Bowery Boys star and former husband of noir queen Gloria Grahame).
Apparently this possibility was what my older male relatives had in mind when they insisted that I be the one to answer the door at family gatherings though several female relatives could have been closer to the door. Snicker.
Well. RIP Arthur. Your daughter certainly appreciated your chivalrous sacrifice.
Jackie immediately hightailed it back to the movie theater where he was on a date. Laura didn't see Jackie's face.
Laura just saw Jackie from behind, heard him whistle, and watched him leap over the yard gate. The police think that the man behind Arthur Mansfield's murder is a shady business competitor of Arthur's, Frank Niles (John Dehner).
But Frank had a rock solid alibi, much to the police lieutenant Brewster's (John Flavin) annoyance. Brewster brings in Laura to see if she can identify any of the taxi drivers/messengers that they've rounded up. Jackie is among them. Laura thinks Jackie is the one but she can't make a positive id.
Brewster loses interest. He lectures Laura about the law's limits. Brewster wants Laura to go away and leave crime solving to the (male) professionals.
But Laura isn't going away. Someone murdered her father; she's not letting that s*** go. Laura flirts with Jackie, getting him to drive her home.
Promising a later date, Laura watches Jackie leave. Jackie gives himself away by whistling and jumping over the gate.
Knowing she's onto something, Laura starts dating Jackie. Laura wants to know Jackie's bosses and get evidence against them.
So without Jackie's knowledge Laura starts work as a cigarette girl at the club owned by the flamboyant gangster Armitage (Albert Dekker) and his handsome sinister underling/advisor Stretch Norton (Hurd Hatfield).
Armitage's hardbitten fiancee Alice (Myrna Dell) doesn't like having Laura around. Everyone has their own agendas and plans. Despite himself Brewster is impressed with Laura's undercover work while warning her of the danger. Laura thinks she can handle herself.
This could have been a much better movie if the writer(s) had addressed why the killers wanted Laura's father out of the way. Or imagine that Laura discovered her father was corrupt in some fashion. Everyone learns things about their parents that they might not like. There's no mystery about who killed Arthur. There should have been one about why.
