The Lady Confesses

Moderately interesting. Has Hugh Beaumont, the Beave's dad, playing a likable guy who is set to marry a sweet young thing, then has his wife (who disappeared seven years ago) show up. She is murdered and the plot is set in motion. The fiancé begins to investigate things. The problem is that she stands out like a sore thumb. Basically, everyone knows who she is but she is able to impose herself into secure locations and do her thing. There are series of red herrings and obvious suspects, a detective who is calm and vigilant most of the time, ready to protect her. Still, it lacks credibility of plot. When we get to the end, we have it pretty much worked out.

By the humble standards of both director Sam Newfield and bottom-rung distributor P.R.C., The Lady Confesses (irrelevant title but catchy) shapes up as an outstanding little film noir. The screenplay is reasonably gripping and intriguing, the players (particularly the four leads: Hughes, Beaumont, MacDonald and Drake) are all on the ball, and more importantly both director Sam Newfield (I'd rate this as his best film) and photographer Jack Greenhalgh give it their best college try, using lots of effective close-ups, framed against noirishly glossy, black backgrounds. Even Emmett Vogan (minus his usual trademark glasses) comes across with reasonable conviction, while Dewey Roninson makes the most of his comparatively large role as an over-buoyant bartender. My only complaint is that all three of Claudia Drake's pleasing song numbers are either cut short or interrupted by the demands of the swift-moving plot.

Hugh Beaumont and Mary Beth Hughes star in The Lady Confesses, a programmer.

The characters played by Hugh Beaumont and Mary Beth Hughes are due to be married. However, his wife shows up after seven years. Then she winds up murdered.

Beaumont is a suspect, but he has a solid alibi as he arrived at a club drunk and slept it off in a dressing room.

Suspicion also falls on the club owner, who knew the wife and borrowed money from her. Hughes gets a job at the club and noses around for info.

Pretty good, and I liked the twist. Hugh some years before he played Beaver's father, had a B movie career. He was a solid leading man.

This film makes "Detour," also released through PRC, look like "How Green Was My Valley." Yes, it's THAT cheap and phony looking. Yet, the performers are good and the plot has cool twists.

I loved seeing Mary Beth Hughes as a lead. She got third or fifth billing in so many better known noirs. At PRC, she was the leading lady she could be.

Hugh Beaumont is fine as her boyfriend with a past. The scenes of him and other men in silhouette are right off the cover of a dime novel.

The ladies in the movie are all fine. We have Ms. Hughes. Claudia Drake is very effective as a café singer. Much of the action takes place in the joint where she sings: the Club 711. And Barbara Slater is appropriately nasty as Beaumont's wife. She's been gone, thought dead, for seven years and has just reappeared as the story begins.

I have to say, the title makes no sense. No spoilers but I'm not sure why it was chosen. (I see that one of its working titles was "Ladies of the Night." That would have been too controversial. It also would have been too obvious, too blatant. And, again, it would not have really fit.) Also, the print I saw was terrible. I'd have rated it higher had it been restored. And I hope it will be!

The Lady Confesses doesn't have a lot going for it, except for plot, and even that's pretty hackneyed. But it's foolish to expect more from a 64-minute cheapie from Producers Releasing Corporation starring Mary Beth Hughes and Hugh Beaumont (later to grasp immortality as The Beaver's dad). Nonetheless, there have been worse programmers.

After a seven year absence (unexplained to us), Beaumont's wife suddenly shows up, putting the kibosh on his plans to marry Hughes. Soon after her return, alas, she's found garotted. Beaumont, the prime suspect, has an alibi: he was passed out in the dressing room of a nightclub singer. Hughes, in the plucky style of the 40s, cops a job as a roving photographer in the club to dig up clues. What she turns up, however, brings her into peril....

The Lady Confesses has been called noir by virtue of its era and its setting, but it's really more of a quick-and-dirty mystery thriller with its roots in the previous decade. The director, Sam Newfield, started out in silents and directed a whole passel of forgettable Westerns before catching up with the emerging noir style of the post-war years. He retains the dubious distinction of having directed Beaumont in nine films.