Low budget film noir is a mixed bag. Some truly follow the details of what the perfect film noir is, while others are simply just detective stories which have one or two similar aspects. In the case of this two part Lippert "streamlined" feature, it seems totally like a T.V. detective show, featuring Hugh Beaumont ("Leave It to Beaver") as a man who has the innate ability to seem to being always at the wrong place at the wrong time. He's first seen walking the streets of San Francisco, discussing through narration his plans for the day, and all of a sudden, he's sitting in an auction shop where the beauty next to him asks him to bid on a mysterious leather suitcase for her. What's inside is unknown as there is a bundle of keys that come with it, and the auctioneer has not had the chance to go inside. This leads to a fight between him and others who want the suitcase that simply contains a saxophone. But when this musical instrument leads to murder, Beaumont finds himself up against the S.F.P.D. in proving his innocence.
In case two, he's involved in a divorce case where he ends up being made a suspect in the murder of the husband. He then must question the widow's niece and try to find out from the femme fatal widow what really happened. Nefarious characters once again get him into trouble with the same S.F.P.D. detectives, and at just a total of 55 minutes, this is obviously T.V. type viewing minus the commercials. The best sequences come when Beaumont has discussions with a classier than normal Edward Brophy, totally disguising his New York accent here and being less than frenetic in nature. The women are pretty indistinguishable from one another which makes it seem at times that they are the same performers even though they are not. But of the many films released in the VCI "Forgotten Noir" series, this one is perhaps a lot closer to Noir than many of the others.
In case two, he's involved in a divorce case where he ends up being made a suspect in the murder of the husband. He then must question the widow's niece and try to find out from the femme fatal widow what really happened. Nefarious characters once again get him into trouble with the same S.F.P.D. detectives, and at just a total of 55 minutes, this is obviously T.V. type viewing minus the commercials. The best sequences come when Beaumont has discussions with a classier than normal Edward Brophy, totally disguising his New York accent here and being less than frenetic in nature. The women are pretty indistinguishable from one another which makes it seem at times that they are the same performers even though they are not. But of the many films released in the VCI "Forgotten Noir" series, this one is perhaps a lot closer to Noir than many of the others.