Assigned To Danger / Budd Boetticher (1948). Eagle-Lion Films. Eagle-Lion Films was a British company owned by financier J. Arthur Rank. In 1945, Poverty Row company PRC had a sleeper hit in "The Enchanted Forest" a fantasy film in color that, at 84 minutes, was a standard feature film, rather than the usual programmer of 55 to 75 minutes that PRC put out (run times short to allow a double feature). That was when the managers at PRC thought they could do better so decided to let themselves be absorbed into the U.K. Eagle-Lion, a little more upscale, and ditched the PRC brand. By 1948, however, Eagle-Lion was still producing the same kind of studio bound double feature films ("Assigned To Danger" is 66 minutes long) that PRC was known for. It's not a bad little film. All the actors a competent and take the proceedings seriously. After a botched robbery which got the leader seriously wounded, the hold-up men take refuge in a remote resort hotel in the mountains. Meanwhile, insurance investigator Dan Sullivan (Gene Raymond, "The Locket") gets wind of a gang connection at the resort and drives up there. He takes an immediate liking to the hotel's owner Bonnie (Noreen Nash) but she encourages him not to stay, saying she has sold the property and is closing up, but she rents him a room for one night. That is when the band on the run shows up. Due to a misunderstanding, the desperate robbers believe Dan to be a doctor. They demand that Dan fix up the wounded man but will kill him if the man dies. Also with Gene Evans (The Steel Helmet, The Bravados) in his second credited role. There is a whiff of The Petrified Forest about this picture as well as the same year's Key Largo.
