The Mysterious Mr. Valentine

Linda Sterling's car has a blow-out in front of a chemicals company. She goes in to use the phone, only to have the partner's wife rush in with a photographer to snap incriminating photos. She runs out, steals a car to drive home, gets into another accident and soon finds herself confronted by William Henry, who says 'you can use me, and I can use you..... as a client' and hands her a business card. He's a private investigator. When she gets a blackmail letter from 'Mr. Valentine', she realizes Henry was right.

It's one of those movies that seems to depend a lot on Henry stumbling around until he falls over the clues, but int the hands of B director Phil Ford -- son of Francis, nephew of John -- it's suffused with a light, breezy sense of humor that kept me amused throughout. Miss Sterling is lovely dressed in modern clothes, and Thomas Jackson is there, playing a police detective, as he had been since the 1920s.

The Mysterious Mr. Valentine packs a whole truckload of plot into its first few minutes. A sudden blowout forces a young woman (Linda Stirling) off a deserted road late at night; a tumbledown factory nearby holds the only prospect for help. A chemist inside seems distracted, even nervous, as well he might, since a body that was lying in the back laboratory amid the flasks and retorts has up and vanished. Nonetheless, he produces a bottle (of hooch) to offer Stirling a hospitable drink. Suddenly, as they toast, the door bursts open and a flashbulb goes off; the chemist's wife, it seems, has her suspicions. Scared witless, Stirling bolts outside and tears off in the nearest car, only to run a man down. But we know something that she does not: It's the corpse that was in the back room....

Too bad the rest of the movie, a Republic crime programmer, doesn't live up to its breakneck opening. It looks surprisingly good, though, with a noirish fondness for crisp, intricate shadows. The story involves a brash, smart-mouthed private eye (William Henry) who tries to help Stirling locate the `Mr. Valentine' who's blackmailing her about the hit-and-run with a series of unsettling phone calls. The clean cinematography, unfortunately, belies a muddy plot, with more characters and subplots than its brevity can accommodate. It still generates a passing amount of fun and suspense, and stands as an example of how the light mystery programmers so popular in the late1930s came to take on the more freighted style of the late 1940s.

Linda Sterling (Janet) seems to be caught up in a big, complicated mess that involves murder, blackmail, adultery and theft and we see it all in the first 10 minutes or so. William Henry (Steve) is the private investigator who helps to solve the case and keeps her protected. He gets involved with various characters but you need to pay attention as no time is wasted in this fast-paced offering.

The acting is good although we get a few lame comedy attempts, eg, Linda Sterling pretending to be a secretary and wearing big glasses that means that she can't see properly. Yes....very funny. Actually, Linda Sterling is quite funny on another occasion, albeit unintentional. When William Henry is taking a beating and fighting for his life in the same room as Linda Sterling, she phones the police and does absolutely NOTHING to help him. And then, when the bad guy runs off, she shouts at Henry to get after him. WHAT? Get after him yourself, you silly bitch. Like I said, it is actually quite funny.

This film is a fun way to spend an hour but make sure you pay attention or you will lose the plot. And I doubt you'll guess who is behind it all.

"Janet" (Linda Stirling) gets a puncture and seeks the assistance of "Armstrong" (Tristram Coffin) incurring the chagrin of that man's rather jealous wife "Rita" (Barbara Wooddell). To make matters worse, she now drives off in the wife's car only to collide with another car and then find herself embroiled in a previous, and fatal, hit-and-run with the partner of the husband of the wife of the car she is driving. Still with me? Now she engages the help of PI "Morgan" (William Henry) to try to get to the bottom of an internecine mystery that involves fraud, insurance and mysterious women. It packs quite a lot of plot into an hour, but the acting and the dialogue is banal at best with very basic production values that smack more of television than cinema. It probably looked OK at a drive-in when the audience maybe had better things to do, and it really is pretty instantly forgettable fayre.

Sometimes compelling, often confusing private eye flick from Republic. What is or isn't noir is debated a lot by classic film fans. You can see some of that in the reviews here. It's a bit like the horror vs thriller debate I guess. I don't see that it matters all that much. There's nothing in this that screams film noir to me but I could say the same for a lot of crime pictures that are widely accepted as staples of the genre. This is a so-so B movie from a "lesser" studio that could surprise you from time to time with real gems. This is not one of those times. If you're like me and you sometimes feel like you've seen everything from the 40s, give it a shot. It won't likely become a favorite but maybe you'll enjoy it for what it is.