IMDb RATING
7.0/10
5.1K
YOUR RATING
British police are after a serial killer who lures his female victims through newspaper personal ads and sends cryptic poem clues to the cops.British police are after a serial killer who lures his female victims through newspaper personal ads and sends cryptic poem clues to the cops.British police are after a serial killer who lures his female victims through newspaper personal ads and sends cryptic poem clues to the cops.
Cedric Hardwicke
- Julian Wilde
- (as Sir Cedric Hardwicke)
Annette Warren
- Blonde Nightclub Singer
- (singing voice)
John Alban
- Concertgoer
- (uncredited)
Jimmy Aubrey
- Nelson
- (uncredited)
Brooks Benedict
- Concertgoer
- (uncredited)
Wilson Benge
- Police Criminologist
- (uncredited)
Paul Bradley
- Concertgoer
- (uncredited)
Colin Campbell
- Wilberforce
- (uncredited)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe title was changed to "Personal Column" midway through the original U.S. theatrical release because staff at the Production Code Administration thought the word "lured" sounded too much like "lurid". Director Douglas Sirk felt the title change confused potential audiences and led to the film's box-office failure.
- GoofsSandra, a taxi dancer, is enlisted by Scotland Yard to help catch the killer. Within a short period of time, she is appointed to be a detective and she is issued a gun. This all happens without an interview or any training. At Scotland Yard, firearms are only issued to senior officers, and most certainly not to a recruited civilian such as Sandra.
- Quotes
Sandra Carpenter: What is it tonight? A sweepstakes for zombies? I hope you two will be very happy.
- Crazy creditsOpening credits - a flashlight pans along the side of a building, and the credits are written on the side of the wall.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Vampira Returns: Lured 1947 (1956)
Featured review
Lured (AKA: Personal Column) is directed by Douglas Sirk and collectively written by Leo Rosten, Jacques Companéez, Simon Gantillon and Ernst Neubach. It stars Lucille Ball, George Sanders, Charles Coburn, Cedric Hardwicke, Joseph Calleia and Boris Karloff. Music is by Michel Michelet and cinematography by William H. Daniels.
A serial killer in London is murdering young women whom he meets through the personal columns section of the newspaper. Taunting the police with cryptic poems, the killer is proving most illusive, so much so that when a friend of dancer Sandra Carpenter (Ball) disappears, the police enlist her to act as bait to lure the killer in.
There's a lot to like about Lured, on proviso you have your expectation level correctly set as to what sort of film it is. It's a very uneven movie in tone, which when one sees that there were four writing contributors involved in bringing it to the screen, perhaps comes as no surprise. A remake of Robert Siodmak's 1939 film Pièges (set in Paris), it is never sure if it wants to be a comedy mystery or a dark brooding thriller. A shame because in spite of it being a set bound production, Sirk and Daniels create a sinister visual mood when the story lurks around the constructed London sets.
The cast are ever watchable, though you can see Ball struggling to rein in her natural comedic bent during the more dramatic sequences, but she leads off from the front and looks positively lovely and radiant. Karloff fans get a fun extended cameo, with the great Uncle Boris playing up to a caricature of unstable characters he could do in his sleep, Sanders is suitably stand-offish, Coburn ebullient, while Hardwicke and Calleia add a touch of class to the support ranks.
Michelet's musical score is in keeping with the mixed tonal flow of the picture, in fact sometimes sounding like it should be in a screwball movie from decades previously, but with competent professionalism coming elsewhere from Sirk, Daniels and the lead cast members, it's an enjoyable movie. Even if it's all a bit too jolly and nonchalant for its own good at times. 6.5/10
A serial killer in London is murdering young women whom he meets through the personal columns section of the newspaper. Taunting the police with cryptic poems, the killer is proving most illusive, so much so that when a friend of dancer Sandra Carpenter (Ball) disappears, the police enlist her to act as bait to lure the killer in.
There's a lot to like about Lured, on proviso you have your expectation level correctly set as to what sort of film it is. It's a very uneven movie in tone, which when one sees that there were four writing contributors involved in bringing it to the screen, perhaps comes as no surprise. A remake of Robert Siodmak's 1939 film Pièges (set in Paris), it is never sure if it wants to be a comedy mystery or a dark brooding thriller. A shame because in spite of it being a set bound production, Sirk and Daniels create a sinister visual mood when the story lurks around the constructed London sets.
The cast are ever watchable, though you can see Ball struggling to rein in her natural comedic bent during the more dramatic sequences, but she leads off from the front and looks positively lovely and radiant. Karloff fans get a fun extended cameo, with the great Uncle Boris playing up to a caricature of unstable characters he could do in his sleep, Sanders is suitably stand-offish, Coburn ebullient, while Hardwicke and Calleia add a touch of class to the support ranks.
Michelet's musical score is in keeping with the mixed tonal flow of the picture, in fact sometimes sounding like it should be in a screwball movie from decades previously, but with competent professionalism coming elsewhere from Sirk, Daniels and the lead cast members, it's an enjoyable movie. Even if it's all a bit too jolly and nonchalant for its own good at times. 6.5/10
- hitchcockthelegend
- Oct 16, 2013
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Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Official sites
- Language
- Also known as
- Personal Column
- Filming locations
- Piccadilly Circus, Piccadilly, London, England, UK(opening establishing shots - archive footage)
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Gross US & Canada
- $700,000
- Runtime1 hour 42 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1
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