La scène du crime

An LA police detective (Van Johnson) investigates the murder of another detective and gets involved with night club singer and stripper played by Gloria De Haven. The story has a neat double cross. A criminal organization from "down south" sends a couple of "lobos" to LA in order to take over a bookmaking syndicate. Corruption is at the center of the story as the dead detective was carrying a wad of cash. Johnson's out to prove that he (dead detective) wasn't on the take. His street contact Sleepy (Norman Lloyd) provides some of the films more vivid moments, and Jerome Cowan (Sam Spade's partner in Maltese Falcon) has a great part as "fixer" Arthur Webson. Johnson does very well in the part, combining breeziness that he honed in earlier films with sufficient grit to be believable as a tough detective. His wife played by Arlene Dahl looks great and they share some pretty good chemistry in their scenes. The film does a good job of capturing the story's different elements and cohesively combining them. The action doesn't always come, but when it does it is surprisingly sudden and brutal for the times.