Danger Street

A little bit of a ragged look to this Pine-Thomas B film from Paramount is the reason it gets such a comparatively low rating. Otherwise Danger Street is a fine B mystery film with a bit of comedy thrown in the mix.

Robert Lowery and Jane Withers star as a pair of hotshot reporters who would like very much to save the magazine they've been working for that publisher Paul Harvey wants to sell because his backward policies have been bankrupting the place. The first thought is to get pictures of a most Garbo like heiress Elaine Riley who is planning to get married. They get the pictures including one of her fiancé caught most indiscreetly with another woman.

Fiancé Charles Quigley is also desperate to get that incriminating picture back and the editor of a rival magazine is killed for it. Now if they can solve the mystery Lowery and Withers can also solve all their financial problems and maybe get control of their magazine.

Part of their sleuthing calls for Lowery and Withers to insert themselves into Riley's household as servants. There they come under the supervision of Charles Coleman as the butler who has the best performance in the film. Quigley also gets himself bumped off and Lowery is looking good for it.

Pine-Thomas didn't take their usual care with this one, it looks more like a Monogram feature, but better. Still Lowery and Withers and the cast have nothing to be ashamed of with Danger Street.

Editor Robert Lowery and his girlfriend/photographer Jane Withers are frustrated by Paul Harvey. They want to produce a great photomagazine with shots and stories with pizazz, while Harvey is interested in his dignity as a publisher of health culture magazine. Harvey wants to sell the magazine, so Lowery and his staff buy it... but part of the money comes from Harvey's own personal account at the magazine, and the auditors are coming Monday. Desperate to replace the money, they sell pictures of heiress Elaine Riley kissing her fiance, Bill Evans. It's only after they've sold the shot to a competing magazine that they realize it's not Miss Riley that Evans is kissing, and that people are murdered, starting with the editor they sold the picture to.

It's a well written and well played comedy-mystery directed by the unexceptional Lew Landers. Lowery does a nice double-take and Miss Withers is fine with her bull-in-the-china-shop attitude and quizzical delivery. As is typical with Pine-Thomas movies for Paramount, they fill the cast with slightly down-at-the-heels talent, skilled performers who were not quite the stars they had once been, like Lyle Talbot, and young , hungry talent in bit roles, like Herschel Bernardi. The Dollar Bills boasted proudly that they never had A budgets, and that all their movies made money. That's because, unlike great talent, if they never turned out a great movie, the ones they turned out were solidly entertaining.

Picture and sound quality are pretty bad, but i'm guessing this one won't be restored any time soon. According to imdb, the copyright expired years back, which explains the poor quality. A sixty eight minute B film from pine thomas. According to wikipedia dot org, their motto was "we don't want to make million dollar pictures. We just want to make a million dollars." after getting photos of an illegal gambling joint, pat (jane withers) barely escapes, and is determined to expose the place for her magazine. But the magazine is being sold, so the staff comes up with a plan to buy it... that might not be completely legal. They are also trying to get pics of an elusive rich girl, who is pursued by two suitors. And one of the suitors has two girlfriends. The playful, cartoonish music tells us this is all being done with humor. Except that now there's a dead guy in the magazine office. So they come up with a scheme to find out who dunnit. So much going on! The only two names I recognize here are lyle talbot (charlie johnson) and will wright (chief bullward). It's watchable, but nothing special. Probably too many subplots. And the music is so happy and light, considering they are trying to solve a moidah! Directed by lew landers.

An aggressive magazine editor wants to bump up circulation with a more revealing type format. The publisher, however, nixes the idea so the magazine staff pools their money to buy him out. Trouble is they play fast and loose with the full amount, which leads the editor and his chief reporter into a spiral eventuating in a mysterious murder. Now they're in real trouble.

The first part had me wondering if this could be a lowly Pine-Thomas produced and Lew Landers directed production. There's a zest and motivation to the early scenes that's unusual for a low-budgeter. Then too, Withers shines as a less- than-glamorous leading lady, while leading man Lowery responds in like fashion. But once events move to the murder mansion, things become more ordinary. Maybe you can follow the crime plot, since I had trouble tracking who was photographing whom and why. Add the financing of the magazine buy-out, and the script is not exactly streamlined, to say the least. But the film is really salvaged by Withers' ace performance that's both nervy and charming. Good also to see cantankerous old Will Wright picking up a payday as police chief, though rudely uncredited in the cast list.

Anyway, a better script would have had a shot at making this programmer a minor sleeper. Unfortunately, the result may have fallen short, but remains a credit to the skills of both lead actors.

Ignorantly classified as Film Noir by Tubi to attract eyeballs, "Danger Street" is a prime example of the obvious fact that not all B-movies are watchable. People think that B is a grading, but in fact it meant, like the B-side of a record, a double-feature level movie aimed as a supporting feature. Its quality could vary from A to Z, sometimes being better than the main event.

With Jane Withers and Robert Lowery struggling as the leads, it plays as comedy, with asinine dialogue, even a scene of Black Face that make it a groaner nearly all the way. Corny plot elements, such as the futile cause to save a crappy mag called Flick, go nowhere and action scenes are clumsily handled.

Growing up in the generation after the war, I sat through hundreds of double features of dubious quality, and certainly enjoy the best of the '30s and '40s as saved in TV packages and elsewhere. But this stinker exists merely because it's not copyrighted.