Mystery Street (1950)
Mystery Street (1950), directed by John Sturges.
Murder, skeletal remains, an innocent man arrested, and dangerous attempts at blackmailing the real killer. Detective Morales is on the case with the scientific assistance of Harvard's Department of Legal Medicine.
This is a fun, exciting police procedural which introduces the forensic genre which has become so popular since. Among it's strong features:
Ricardo Montalban, age 30, is lethally suave as a tough but precise police detective, hispanic and not taking any crap from the Boston blue-bloods. In this sort of picture the detective is often bitter and hardened, but he plays the character as dapper and enthusiastic. And yet: he's solved the case by arresting the wrong man. Can he recover before it is too late?
Elsa Lanchester is delightfully creepy as a calculating landlady trying her hand at blackmailing a murderer. We know how that goes.
John Alton's noirish cinematography gives this B picture a wonderfully ominous look.
The forensic science was new at the time. They use combined slide projectors to fit a skull to photos, like the Angelator used on a popular TV series.
The studio and location shots are well integrated.
Jan Sterling, the first victim, was last seen in Ace in the Hole (1951).
I always have to note Walter Burke, the leprechaun-like character actor. Here he's a birdwatcher who discovers a skeleton buried on the beach.
Appreciative, chatty commentary track by two film noir scholars. I always like having a man and a woman together on these tracks: it adds perspective.
