Dunderheaded Grade Z film noir from journeyman megger Edward L. Cahn (128 credits!) tags along as revenge-minded daughter Joyce Mackenzie works around slow-footed police to find her father’s murderer on her own. Spotting the likely shooter in a line-up, she declines to finger the guy and decides to date him (!) hoping to find the man behind this trigger-pulling weasel, the Mr. Big who ordered the hit! It all leads to a swanky nightclub/gambling joint run by Albert Dekker & Hurd Hatfield. (How’d these legit film actors get in here?) Blackmail, a signed confession, more murder, and gangster moll Myrna Dell complicate Mackenzie’s amateur sleuthing, but not nearly as much as a romance with one of the likely suspects. Don Martin’s original screenplay ticks off all the proper noir boxes, but it’s too ineptly played to come off. And only Bad Girl Myrna Dell (coiffed a la Lana Turner; vicious & nasty as film noir queen Marie Windsor) gets any sort of rhythm going.
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: After this, it’s hard to work up much interest for more Edward L. Cahn. But LAUGHTER IN HELL/’33, a Pre-Code Southern-Fried prison chain-gang meller with Pat O’Brien (riding the backdraft of I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG/’32), though plenty uneven, has its eye-popping moments, especially in some location shooting.
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