Hard Guy

A typically low budget PRC production, this item shot in less than a week maintains a deadly numb level throughout, hampered by a bland script, weak direction, and lacklustre playing that rests upon the border of incompetence despite a quickly moving storyline. As night club entertainer Doris Cavanaugh (Gayle Mollott) is being wooed by, and later marrying, wealthy heir Tony Tremaine (Howard Banks), she is in truth part of a plot developed by her employer and sometime lover Vic Monroe (Jack La Rue) to extort a large sum from young Tremaine's father in return for an annulment to the marriage. Cold-blooded Monroe, a thoroughgoing cad, utilizes his female employees for this racket, but his latest plan is foiled when Doris, having become genuinely fond of Tony, decides to expose the confidence game and to return the money; unfortunately, she is murdered before she can complete her acts of atonement. At this point in the plot, Julie (Mary Healy), younger sister of Doris, becomes the principal figure of the scenario, one determined to discover whomever caused her sibling's death, hiring on as a cigarette girl at Monroe's club wherein she hopes, by working in an undercover capacity to additionally ascertain the secrets behind evil Vic's operation. After a detective, Steve Randall (Kane Richmond) also begins to delve into Monroe's activities, he and the lovely Julie effortlessly fall into love and marriage, as Steve in conjunction with another gumshoe, Tex Cassidy (Jack Mulhall), close in upon their prey, while it quickly becomes apparent that danger nears for all involved. An Alpha DVD offers a decent print, having only mild skipping, in a modest package that provides no extras, and although the script and direction are of scant merit and the cast merely ambles through the trite affair, there is a sprightly turn from brassy Iris Adrian who steals her scenes as a wisecracking confidante of Julie and paramour of detective Cassidy.