Mystery Street

Mystery Street (1950)

Runtime: 93 minutes

Directed by: John Sturges

Starring: Ricardo Montalban, Sally Forrest, Bruce Bennett, Elsa Lanchester, Marshall Thompson

From: MGM

Last night I saw a film noir, and I picked one that happened to be decent. It was on Turner Classic Movies, and sure it has a famous face as the lead, but it can be argued that Lanchester's role (as a crazy middle-aged lady) is the real highlight. I give the details below: 

Yesterday, TCM spent all day showing Ricardo Montalban movies, and this film noir sounded interesting due to him being one of the stars and there being a forensics angle. I could always stand to watch more film noir, definitely. The CSI sort of thing is only part of the movie, but I still found it pretty enjoyable overall.

The plot is that a dame is found murdered on the beach in the Cape Cod region of Massachusetts. This blonde woman is a prostitute, and in fact was pregnant. Her body is found months later on the beach and Bruce Bennett (as a Harvard forensics expert) has to team with police officer Montalban to try and crack the case. No one even tries to do the distinctive Boston accent, but that's old Hollywood for ya. Anyhow, of course they are a wacky duo who don't always get along, and the cop is someone who is direct and to the point but only a few times does he come across as rude. As I am a nerd, I enjoyed the forensics stuff and how despite it being decades ago, a lot could be determined just from looking at the victim's skeleton, and superimposing a skull onto faces of missing persons can make things a lot easier.

The plot is not trying to discover who the killer was... we see the killer as he does the killing. Rather, it's watching the leads try to crack the case as various characters get involved and you see Ricardo interview suspects, do an interrogation, and other investigative work. While you can probably guess how it ends early on in the film, it is still a solid-enough mystery where I could enjoy its noir photography (from John Alton, who lensed the Anthony Mann noir movies, for example), the colorful supporting characters, and how Ricardo was shown to be a cop that does make mistakes... even serious ones.