... makes this film. Paramount made another film with the exact same name 25 years before, but it was a Gloria Swanson film very much of its time, and this is a film very much of its time - the film noir cycle. And the title is a bit bewildering since "manhandling" really has nothing to do with the plot.
The film opens with psychiatrist Dr. Redman listening to his patient, Alton Bennett (Alan Napier) , talking about a troubling recurring dream he has in which he murders his wealthy and wayward wife, Ruth (Irene Harvey). The doctor advises Bennett to sleep in the guest bedroom for a few nights if he is afraid of what he might do. He then tells his secretary, Merl (Dorothy Lamour), to return that night because he wants to tell Mrs. Bennett all about what her husband just said. Patient-doctor confidentiality isn't what it used to be apparently.
The most catching of Mrs. Bennett's possessions are a bunch of jewels that she owns that are worth and insured for one hundred thousand dollars. After the doctor tells Mrs. Bennett about her husband's dream, she blows it off basically telling the doctor that her husband is harmless. But the next day she is found murdered in her apartment and the jewels are missing.
There are plenty of suspects besides the husband. For one, the secretary Merl has some kind of secret past, and she has only been working for the doctor for four weeks. Her downstairs neighbor, a PI and ex-cop (Duryea) seems up to no good, and Ruth Bennett told her latest boyfriend about the husband's threat and he seems surprised and fascinated when she also tells him that the jewels are authentic - he thought they were fake. Who knows what other people Ruth might have told about the jewels or who these people that we know about might have told.
There are plenty of twists in this one, and who actually did it is a surprise, but it is a bit of a mystery that Duryea is third billed since he is the person you notice, whose character jumps off the screen at you. Lamour and even Sterling Hayden, whose big break will come the following year in Asphalt Jungle, and are both billed above Duryea, seem a bit two dimensional in this. It is really a plot driven noir.
Paramount didn't do very many noirs, but the ones they did do were done extremely well. Maybe this one isn't as well known as "Sorry Wrong Number" because there are no really big names in it. I'd recommend it.
