Undercover Girl

This is a highly unpleasant and nasty noir dealing with the very bottom end of dirty business and criminal rackets, the drug business manufactured and delivered through the respectable front of a doctor, while his gang of hoodlums, gangsters, murderers and inhuman racketeers is one of the worst possible conceivable rogues gallery, one constantly growing more desperate in fear and anxiety (Royal Dano) while the scariest is the bulky thug with a broken neck. They are really monsters all of them, while stepping down to them and standing out of the film with glory is Alexis Smith, always stylish and making a magnificent appearance, here also dressed up extra in the stola and luxury wardrobe of the dame she acts to personify in order to get at the gang and especially her father's murderer. It is one of the most revolting noirs for its abhorrent story but magnificently worked out and made real in nerve-racking realism, while once again you will never forget Alexis Smith.

A cop has taken money from mobsters, though he now has second thoughts and decides instead to arrest these drug dealers. But they get the drop on him...killing him instead. A short time later, a cop approaches a policewoman candidate, Christine Miller (Alexis Smith) to inform her that her father was the man who had been killed and he needs help to figure out who was responsible. She agrees to leave her department to come to work with him on exposing the killers. This will mean her going under cover and pretending to be a crook looking to make a big drug deal and the hope is that as she works her way up through the gang that they'll find out who is in charge...and who killed her dad.

The best thing about this film is that it doesn't resort to the usual cliches and is a well made tale. Not exactly brilliant but still quite enjoyable and worth your time.

Bent copper, Regis Toomey learns the hard way that it's too late to say that he's awfully sorry and that striking up a deal with a drugs cartel was a serious error of judgement on his part, but, as a gesture of good will he is prepared to return the money. His screen moments come to an abrupt halt with a bodged attempt at a face saving arrest.

The gang will ultimately discover that statuesque, resolute Alexis Smith (Toomey's daughter) is made of sterner stuff, as she goes undercover, with more than a little personal interest at stake.

Taking a seedy apartment, she steadily weaves her way in, targeting weakest link, gaunt, jittery 'Moocher' (Royal Dano). Further probing brings her into contact with crooked quack (Edmon Ryan), smarmy hot-shot (Gerald Mohr) and a hatchet man in a neck brace, who from the front resembles someone who had a horrific bike crash and the handlebars wedged in his mouth!

Routine in certain respects, but notable for the fact that it is the poised and striking Smith who is taking all the risks, while the increasingly smitten Scott Brady strives, from the sidelines, to ensure that she is still around for him to be smitten by, when everything hits the fan. Finally choosing to pull her from the firing line, the movie looks to be heading for a Horlicks rather than bourbon finale, but the feisty, determined cop proves she is more than capable of making her own cocaine decisions!

Not a classic, but a stimulating watch for noir fans with stabbings, shootings, fatal falls from windows/down stairwells, broken necks.....and pipes.

Rookie policewoman Alexis Smith (Chris/Sally) goes undercover to help Police Lieutenant Scott Brady (Trent) smash a drugs gang and exact revenge on the man who killed her father.

The story is ok but the picture quality isn't too good. It's also unbelievable nonsense. Smith is badly cast - she doesn't have the looks to physically attract so many people and she is too square-looking to convince as a top gangster woman. It also makes no sense why seasoned bad girl Gladys George (Liz) would open up to her and tell her all that she does. There is also no way that Smith would be sent in to carry out that final sting. There is so much that is just a load of tosh with this film, but it keeps the audience watching.

Goodness knows why the female trainee officers have to wear shorts during target practice. Very funny. They should also wear shorts when making arrests. And when answering the telephone.

Alexis Smith and Scott Brady star in "Undercover Girl" from 1950.

After her police detective father (Regis Toomey) is murdered by people in the drug business, Chris Miller (Smith), a cop herself, infiltrates the gang on the recommendation of another female officer (Connie Gilchrist).

Chris turns out to be made for undercover, a quick thinker and quite an actress, able to be tough and sexy. She manages to convince them all.

Director Joseph Penney keeps the suspense going and the audience wondering if Chris will be found out.

Routine but a nice part for Gladys George, and an early one for Richard Egan as Chris' boyfriend. And Smith is a knockout.