Chinatown at Midnight

Hurd Hatfield is pretty good as the just-doing-what-he's-doing cheap psychopathic hood, and some nice location shooting by Henry Freulich helps, but the usual Sam Katzman cast and editing errors are far too noticeable in this cheap noir set in San Francisco's Chinatown, where the pants pressers have Scottish accents and it may be after midnight at the top of a building, but it's bright mid day on the street.

Other methods that are used to keep production costs down include shooting most of the outdoor scenes wild, subplots that vanish and telling the story through narration. Within its the penny-pinching context, almost everyone pulls off a professional if not particularly distinguished job. You may wish to see this once, but you most likely won't feel the need for a second viewing.