I Take This Oath

First: I would never call this a film noir. It's a lackluster movie about police officers and criminals. It came out several years after its genre had died off.

The officer father of the hero speaks with a thick brogue. His loving wife never gets out of the kitchen unless she's at church.

Joyce Compton is the female lead. She plays a police officer's daughter in love with the main character. She got lots of work but was immortalized as Dixie Belle Lee in "The Awful Truth." Here, she wears bangs and has plucked eyebrows, a la Claudette Colbert. There are several reaction shoots of her that seem spliced in.

The movie has several goofs. In one, a b-girl sidles onto a bar stool. She's meant to be hot stuff. And indeed, she is played by the always attractive, often naughty Veda Ann Borg. But her behind seems to bang into the edge of the stool before she alights atop it. I suspect this was shot in one take.

If the print were better, it might be worth watching. But it is undistinguished. The acting never gets beyond adequate. And the plot holds few surprises.