I caught this movie at 5AM this morning on the Late Late Late Show on Movies TV! It turns up in that time slot on Movies TV quite often. From the title, it appears that it was meant to be the first of a series. Other titles could have been "Cosmo Jones in the Murder Stopper," or "Cosmo Jones in the Arson Extinguisher." But it was not to be. This movie was cheaply made and it shows. Frank Graham just isn't interesting as the correspondence school graduate in detective studies. A blonde Gale Storm is the girlfriend of police Sergeant Flaherty, played by Richard Cromwell. Edgar Kennedy as Police chief Murphy is a caricature of every Irish cop that ever showed up in a Jimmy Cagney movie. Tris Coffin plays one of the gangsters and Mandan Moreland comes off best as Eustace, a janitor who assist Cosmo in smashing crime. This plot involves two kidnappings, and a rivalry between two criminal gangs. Cosmo wants to be a detective in the worst way, but the police don't want his help. So he operates on his own, with Euastace's able assistance. It can be a fairly watchable movie as long as you don't expect too much. If you haven't seen Cosmo Jones yet, it might be worth setting the DVR the next time it turns up on Movies TV.
