Intrigue

An alcoholic struggling author is accused of murdering his publisher and sets out to discover the real killer, but is hampered by his inability to recall the events around the killing, including his plot for a potential new murder mystery.

A down-and-nearly-out writer makes a drunken visit to the office of his publisher, who turns up dead shortly afterward, and the writer is unable to prove his innocence. But with the aid of the publisher's secretary, and a fellow-writer -- maybe or maybe not -- he finds the guilty person.—Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>

Jeffrey Andrews (Chester Morris) is a novelist with a modicum of success. While his novels are not bestsellers, he has a dedicated following as being known as a master of the psychological. But critical acclaim does not pay the bills or put food on the table. And what success he has is, despite he being an alcoholic, he admitting that he can't remember much when he's on a bender. He is drunk on his latest visit to speak to his publisher, Henry Small (William Forrest), a man he detests in believing that Small takes advantage of him leading to his poverty. In that chat which includes Small and a fellow writer Lloyd Harrison (Steven Geray), encouraging him to write better selling novels, such as pulp fiction murder mysteries, Jeffrey rambles off the plot for one including the conclusion about the "howdunit," the hook being that the murdered dead body is discovered in a room bolt locked from the inside. The subsequent problem for Jeffrey is that Small is eventually found murdered in his office bolt locked from the inside, as such he being the primary police suspect in not only having motive and opportunity but the knowledge of how to commit the murder, if he could only remember himself in trying to discover who the real murderer is. He has to try to remember to whom he told the story or who may have been around at the time he told Small. His top suspect is Small's new secretary, bleach-blonde Evelyn Green (Constance Dowling), who, like most of Small's previous secretaries was hired more for her role as office eye-candy for him than her secretarial skills. The further problem for Jeffrey is his growing attraction to her, a fan.—Huggo