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.