The greatest movie ever made..!

Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

If you tend to like minor B-movies of the '40s, this is definitely one to see. Male lead Damian O'Flynn as a tough private detective and female lead Helen Parrish as a younger friend of his who tries to make sure her hero doesn't get hurt both have charisma. The editing never gets slow, and the script is delightfully jam-packed with classic cliché lines of the movies and of the era, but serving a watchable story.Neil Hamilton, eventually of the Batman TV series, is effective in one of the supporting roles. Gaspere Biondolillo plays his usual straightforward heavy. The print available on the inexpensive Alpha DVD is good.

I have a fondness for B detective movies from the 1940s. While this isn't a great one, it is an entertaining one worth a watch. A private detective, Eddie Delaney, has just been commissioned a Lieutenant in the Army and has to report for duty in three days. Delaney's father is an Irish cop who is murdered by gangsters who have just stolen a truck loan of tires. Rubber was a big black market item during World War II. The gangster, Marty Clark, is played by Jack LaRue ( who made a career of playing gangsters) who was a big time booze runner during prohibition who avoided prison because he always paid his income tax. Clark owns a night club called 'The Spot.' Delaney finds out that Clark was responsible for his father's murder and when Clark is murdered, Delaney becomes the number one suspect. Delaney then must find the real murderer and the ringleader of the rubber heisting gang. One of the most interesting things about the movie was its depiction of a central music exchange operation where, for a nickel, people could call the exchange and order a particular song to be played through the exchange's juke box. The discovery of the ringleader of the gang wasn't really much of a surprise since the two most likely candidates had already been murdered. It was nice seeing Anne Jeffrey's in one of her very early credited roles. This movie is a pleasant way to spend an hour.

There is the thrill of low-budget film noir. And there is the frustration of meandering, uninteresting movies made on the cheap. This one falls into the second category.The Spot is the name of a nightclub. The film is about a policeman whose father has been killed by gangsters. He heads out to track them down.Maybe it was the bad print. Maybe it's me. But I felt I'd seen this a hundred times, most of those times better than it is here.It has promise, too: The cop is fascinated with a woman who plays records she introduces over juke boxes. They then meet. Now, though this was made well before I was born, I have seen that kind of juke box. And it is incredibly fascinating: When I was a teenager, I wandered into a bar that still had such a device. I always liked juke boxes, in bars or diners. But this one was different. You talked to it and a sultry sounding female voice talked back to you! That is addressed here but dropped into the general, uninteresting stew.The movie has one thing going for it: In a small role, it features the very young Anne Jeffreys. What a beauty she was, and doubtless still is!

A private detective about to enter the Army investigates the murder of a cop by gangsters who are in the stolen tires racket. Along the way he is helped by Helen Parrish the pretty girl who plays records by request. I remembered her from You'll Find Out, a great old movie with Kay Kyser & Co.The cast does a good job and there are some recognizable faces. You will recognize Neil Hamilton who played Comissioner Gordon on the 1960s Batman series and Anne Jeffreys who played Marion Kirby in the Topper TV series. Also Esther Muir who was the blonde Groucho pursued in A Night At The Opera and Dick Wessel who was in many many old movies. Of course there are a few times when things don't exactly make sense but it's entertainment. A nice little B movie that moves along well and wraps everything up in under an hour. It captures the feeling of movies made around that time. Worth watching!I gave it a 6.