Better than most people think

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

This terrible movie comes from PRC—a tiny independent film studio known for making,…well,…crap. Their budgets were always low, the writing usually pretty bad and their talent usually unknown. When the term 'Poverty Row' was created to describe low-budget film studios that usually rented space in real studios at night to make their films, they must have had PRC in mind. Now this does not mean that all their films were unwatchable—their horror films with the likes of George Zucco were great fun. But you certainly did not expect art from PRC! This mystery film frankly irritated me—much more than usual. That's because the writing was so nonsensical and shabby that I found watching the film a real chore. In fact, after a while I found myself no longer paying attention…it was that bad.The film begins with a lady pointing a gun at a man's head and making him drive. When she instructs him to turn while making her getaway, his car crashes. The man naturally goes to the police…who do locate the lady but don't seem to care that she pointed a gun at a man's head and hijacked his car! And, what's crazier, is that although the man is mad and insists he will sue her for the damage (after all, the police didn't even arrest her!!), she acts like it's all his fault and refuses—saying "you are the one who had the accident"! Then, he smiles and tells her to forget about it!!! What part of a threat to murder a man and destruction of his car didn't he, the police or the writer understand?! Frankly, at this point I was sick of the film and rarely have I ever seen a situation so muddled and stupid in a film. It only seemed to get worse…and I wonder if the film was actually written by a lemur!

So let's see, there were the photographer, the furrier, the deranged knife dealer, and the perfume shop lady. I don't know if gardener Tim actually qualified to be a store owner, so that leaves the story a few people short on the 'Seven Doors' theme. I guess you could make a case for Mary Rawling, but then again, she was in line to inherit the entire Hamilton mini-mall where those store fronts were, and not an actual business person. So chalk up the title to a bit of poetic license, the more doors to death the merrier I guess.Boy, you really have to pay attention to what's going on here, and even with that, it's a hard story to follow. There's some business about an Egyptian hope chest and missing jewelry thrown in, and I'm not sure how it all ties together with the body in the basement. Oh yeah, and they went to a lot of trouble to have the actual murderer remove the victim's thumb prints by peeling off the skin from his fingers. This was more elaborate than Charlie Chan ever had to deal with, but I'm sure he would have solved the crime as well. Actually, he had a fingerprint mystery too, but it was a lot easier to follow (1946 - "Dark Alibi").Catch this one for the odd dance routine in the middle of the story by the perfume lady, Mable De Rose. I had never heard of the performer portraying the character, an actress by the name of Rebel Randall. A quick check of her IMDb credits shows that she's still alive and approaching ninety! Goes to show you how tough you had to be to make this flick!

Low budget mystery. A shot rattles out of the dark and a woman is seen running from that direction. A young architect Jimmy McMillan(Chick Chandler)discovers a dead body that goes missing. The woman in a hurry, Mary(June Clyde), is linked to the death scene; but it is McMillan that has to try and solve the case to avoid serious suspicion. Suspects are six shop owners in the vicinity of the crime scene. All the atmosphere of Film-Noir; but not quite the real thing. This flick musters just enough to be a decent low budget mystery/drama and is a nice little escape. Other players include: George Meeker, Michael Raffetto, Milton Wallace and Rebel Randall.

Unfortunately a boring flick, and obviously the only way to see it is the butchered bootleg Public Domain version, which is so blurry and dark that at times you have hard time making out where the screen is. The leading actors are a nuisance. The man spends most of his screen time trying to appear nonchalant, charming and sexy, forgetting totally what the film is about and that he is a murder suspect because of some dame who played him for a goose to start with. The dame herself merely walks through the flick, being dignified if she's not busy appearing cute. It's a rather badly written stuff, never interesting or witty. No good camera work, no memorable soundtrack, no glamorous actresses or atmospheric sets. It only scratches the surface of the genre, and nothing happens if you miss this totally missable flick.