Victor Mature stars as Frankie Christopher, a promoter who meets a beautiful young waitress in a restaurant and promises to make her into a huge star.
Her name is Vicky Lynn (Carole Landis), and yes, Frankie does keep his promise until she is murdered and he is the key suspect. He works to prove himself innocent and enlists the aid of Vicky's sister, Jill (Betty Grable) with whom he falls for and she for him.
One thorn in Frankie's side is detective Ed Cornell (Laird Cregar), a borderline homicidal man who wants to slowly destroy Frankie for unknown reasons. Jill suspects Cornell of the murder and is terrified of him, and he uses this to his advantage.
After many twists and turns the true murderer is brought out into the light and even that has an additional twist. This is a great film noir as I stated above. The performances are all top notch, and watching Cregar in the role of a demented detective is a joy.
I have seen Grable in a lot of films, mostly her musicals during WW2, but this is totally different and she does a very god job. Seeing her and Carole Landis in this film as sisters makes it even better because I always considered both of them to be very beautiful women.
Mature does his usual good job of portraying the innocent man wrongly accused of a crime. Director Bruce Humberstone makes good use of light and shadow to bring this film noir alive. It had been many years since I last saw this film and the entertainment value hasn't diminished at all. I remember getting this on VHS in the tape trading days back in the 80's from a friend of mine named Jim Aschbacher, and the first time I ever saw it I was impressed.
Highly Recommended film.
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