Mystery Street (1950)

Mystery Street
Directed by John Sturges
Written by Sydney Boehm and Richard Brooks; story by Leonard Spigelglass
1950/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing/Film Noir Classics Vol. 4

This is a well-paced police procedural with nice flourishes from director Sturges and noir master cinematographer John Alton.

The setting is Boston.  As the movie open, we see blonde Vivian Heldon (Jan Serling) arguing with somebody on the phone while her landlady Mrs. Smerrling (Elsa Lanchester) nags her in the background for the rent.  She isn’t able to get the person on the other end of the line to come to her so she gives up and goes to work.  It develops that Vivian is a “bar girl” with plenty of numbers in her little black book.

Vivian heads off to “work” where she spots Henry Shanway (Marshall Thompson) who is busy drinking away his troubles, having left his wife in the hospital where she is being treated following a miscarriage.  She makes another phone call then takes off with Henry in his car.  He is drunk and she is driving.  She asks him to trade places and, while he is walking to the driver’s side, takes off with it.  Soon enough, we see a shadowy figure approach her in the parked car and shoot her.  Segue to some time later and Henry is collecting on his car insurance, having reported the car as having been stolen from in front of the hospital.

Segue to months later and a skeleton is found on the beach.  Detective Peter Moralas (Ricardo Montalban) is assigned to the case.  He takes the bones to the Harvard Legal Medicine Department where he works closely with Dr. McAdoo (Bruce Bennett) to determine the identity and cause of death of the victim.

When the body is discovered to be Vivian’s, Moralas interviews Mrs. Smerrling at the boarding house.  She proves to be quite the detective herself, in the service of a possible blackmail scheme.  As soon as the car is tied to Henry he is in a world of hurt.  The only person who believes in him is his wife Grace (Sally Forrest).  With Betsy Blair as another resident at Mrs. Smerrling’s boarding house.

This is a tight little police procedural and looks beautiful.  My favorite shot was of Jan Sterling at the bar next to a swaying hula dancer lamp.  It just said everything about her character that you needed to know.  Elsa Lanchester is a real hoot!  Recommended.

I should have mentioned before now that all the films in Volumes 1 – 4 of the Warner Brothers Film Noir Classics Collection have excellent commentaries by film historians, sometimes with input from participants in the production.  I hadn’t known before listening to the one for this film that Betsy Blair had been blacklisted for campaigning for women’s rights within the Screen Actor’s Guild despite the fact that she was never affiliated with the Communist Party.   She got back to work only after husband Gene Kelly refused to do any more pictures for MGM unless the ban was lifted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAVZRMQvgII

Trailer