Private detective William Marshall is hired by wealthy playboy Ricardo Cortez to look into who's blackmailing him. During their talks, someone is snooping around. After a brawl and Marshall knocked out on the floor the intruder runs off but is shot, with Cortez holding the smoking gun. But once Marshall calls in the cops, the corpse has disappeared and Cortez and his girl Adele Mara claim there never was a corpse. Reluctantly Marshall continues working for Cortez and starts digging at his favorite casino, run by Roy Barcroft. There he finds out torch singer Stephanie Bachelor was blackmailing Cortez, for not giving her a shot on the radio as he had promised. She has snapshots of Cortez and her in compromising positions. But before they can pay her off to get the photos back, she ends up dead. The blackmailing doesn't stop however, and Marshall has to dig deep to help Cortez.
Dan Turner, Hollywood Detective, was a character created by prolific pulp author Robert Leslie Bellem (with an estimated 3000 stories to his name/pseudonyms!). He was a true pulp author, mostly known/remembered for his creative use of hard-boiled language. I highly recommend checking out some of his short stories, they're true pulp but a lot of fun to read in an almost camp-y way. I don't know if Republic meant for this movie to test the waters for a Dan Turner series of movies, but that never happened. Which is unfortunate, despite the many flaws, the movie's a lot of fun. The fistfights are fun and exciting (and make use of/destroy every piece of furniture in sight), the one-liners are hilarious, and there is even a true femme fatale.
Marshall wasn't exactly the most talented actor, his private life's much more interesting (his wives include Michele Morgan and Ginger Rogers!), but he does okay enough here. He comes off a bit like Ralph Meeker in 'Kiss Me Deadly', shooting one-liners left and right from the hip, but without Meeker's bravado and swagger. He's also the first detective who can handle himself in a fistfight, but passes out when he's pushed into a pool. Cortez ('The Maltese Falcon' #1) is perfectly cast in the suave playboy role, and Mara ('Exposed') is also quite good but role is too small given the importance of her femme fatale character.
Director Lesley Selander ('Passkey To Danger') and Reggie Lanning ('Strangers In The Night') have tons of B-features to their name, and their professionalism shows. For a low-budget B-feature this movie looks pretty good. It's in the plot department that it really falls apart. Too much happens and too much relies on coincidence, with some parts not making much sense, making the movie not too memorable. But I don't care, I had fun with this movie. Heck, I'll give this one a rewatch just for the one-liners... 'Take your mitt of your mutt'. Extra point(s) for the fun factor. 7/10
Dan Turner, Hollywood Detective, was a character created by prolific pulp author Robert Leslie Bellem (with an estimated 3000 stories to his name/pseudonyms!). He was a true pulp author, mostly known/remembered for his creative use of hard-boiled language. I highly recommend checking out some of his short stories, they're true pulp but a lot of fun to read in an almost camp-y way. I don't know if Republic meant for this movie to test the waters for a Dan Turner series of movies, but that never happened. Which is unfortunate, despite the many flaws, the movie's a lot of fun. The fistfights are fun and exciting (and make use of/destroy every piece of furniture in sight), the one-liners are hilarious, and there is even a true femme fatale.
Marshall wasn't exactly the most talented actor, his private life's much more interesting (his wives include Michele Morgan and Ginger Rogers!), but he does okay enough here. He comes off a bit like Ralph Meeker in 'Kiss Me Deadly', shooting one-liners left and right from the hip, but without Meeker's bravado and swagger. He's also the first detective who can handle himself in a fistfight, but passes out when he's pushed into a pool. Cortez ('The Maltese Falcon' #1) is perfectly cast in the suave playboy role, and Mara ('Exposed') is also quite good but role is too small given the importance of her femme fatale character.
Director Lesley Selander ('Passkey To Danger') and Reggie Lanning ('Strangers In The Night') have tons of B-features to their name, and their professionalism shows. For a low-budget B-feature this movie looks pretty good. It's in the plot department that it really falls apart. Too much happens and too much relies on coincidence, with some parts not making much sense, making the movie not too memorable. But I don't care, I had fun with this movie. Heck, I'll give this one a rewatch just for the one-liners... 'Take your mitt of your mutt'. Extra point(s) for the fun factor. 7/10