The Strange Mrs. Crane (1948)

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You can’t leave your past behind!
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vt Beyond Reasonable Doubt; vt Guilty Woman
US / 62 minutes / bw / John Sutherland Productions, Pathe, Eagle–Lion Dir: Sherman Scott (i.e., Sam Newfield) Pr: John Sutherland Scr: Al Martin Story: Frank Burt, Robert Libott Cine: Jack Greenhalgh Cast: Marjorie Lord, Robert Shayne, Pierre Watkin, James Seay, Ruthe Brady, Claire Whitney, Mary Gordon, Chester Clute, Dorothy Granger, Charles Williams, Emmett Vogan.

A cracker of a minor film noir that seems to have passed under just about everybody’s radar—mine included, until now.

Jenny Hadley (Lord) used to be in partnership with Floyd Durant (Shayne) in a blackmailing racket: she’d get into compromising positions with married men (like Comstock in Chicago who “fell so hard for her he wouldn’t even go to the police”) while Floyd did the rest. As you’d expect, it wasn’t just in their extortioning game that Jenny and Floyd were partnered.

Marjorie Lord as the very respectable Mrs. Crane . . . but in reality
a femme fatale.

Now, though, Jenny has left her life of crime—and Floyd—behind, and has become ultra-respectable Mrs. Gina Crane, wife of the much older lawyer Clinton Crane (Watkin), who’s the pundits’ favorite to triumph in the upcoming state gubernatorial race.

When Clinton wins his primary, Gina (as we’ll call her for convenience) reminds him of his promise to

The Black Raven (1943)

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It is a dark and stormy night . . .
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US / 61 minutes / bw / Sigmund Neufeld Productions, PRC Dir: Sam Newfield Pr: Sigmund Neufeld Scr: Fred Myton Cine: Robert Cline Cast: George Zucco, Noel Madison, Byron Foulger, Robert Middlemass, Charlie Middleton, Robt. Randall, Wanda McKay, Glenn Strange, I. Stanford Jolley.

Years ago Amos Bradford (Zucco) was a criminal mastermind known as The Black Raven. Now he runs a remote inn, also called The Black Raven, somewhere near the border with Canada. Tonight a stranger arrives, Whitey Cole (Jolley)—although he’s no stranger to Amos, but the partner he left to carry the can when he evaded the cops one final time before assuming the mantle of respectability. Whitey’s escaped from the pen with ten years of his sentence still to go. Now he wants to settle up with Amos one last time . . .

Whitey Cole (I. Stanford Jolley) arrives on the scene.

But then Amos’s dimwit handyman, Andy (Strange), bursts in out of the howling gale, and between the two of them Amos and Andy (yes, really) subdue Whitey:

Andy: “What was the matter? Didn’t he like the service?”
Amos: “He’s suffering from rabid delusions aggravated by a moronic mentality.”
Andy: “Is that bad?”

Other guests arrive seeking shelter from the storm, all of them in one way or another relying on the inn’s reputation as the last stopping point on the way to refuge in Canada. First to arrive is gangster Mike Bardoni (Madison)—his name spelled “Baroni” in a newspaper headline we see, but that’s B-movies for you. He knows of Amos’s past as The Black Raven and wants his aid in

Lady at Midnight (1948)

US / 62 minutes / bw / John Sutherland Dir: Sherman Scott (i.e., Sam Newfield) Pr: John Sutherland Scr: Richard Sale Cine: Jack Greenhalgh Cast: Richard Denning, Frances Rafferty, Lora Lee Michel, Ralph Dunn, Nana Bryant, Jack Searle, Harlan Warde, Claudia Drake, Ben Welden, Sid Melton, Pierre Watkin, William Gould, Rodney Bell.

One night Ellen Eve Wiggins née McPhail (Rafferty) is woken by a neighbor’s dog barking, then hears footsteps in the hall; after some effort she persuades radio newscaster husband Peter (Denning) that they should go check their insufferably cute infant adopted daughter Bettina “Tina” (Michel). Tina tells them she was visited by a sad-looking lady who talked about the fact of Tina’s adoption. The parents think Tina just had a dream.

Next day they’re called to see John Featherstone (Watkin) of the adoption agency, who informs them he suspects the legality of the adoption may be challenged on the grounds that Ellen could possible have been underage when the documents were signed.

After Pete and Ellen discover the mysterious midnight visitor was oil heiress Amanda “Mandy” Forsythe, found murdered the next morning, Pete hires PI Al Garrity (Dunn), an addict of horserace betting, to help sort things out. It proves Tina’s mother was not showgirl Carolyn Sugar (Drake), as stated on the adoption papers, but the murdered Amanda, who changed her will a few days before her death to make Tina her sole beneficiary. It seems the chief architect of the fraudulent attempt to have Tina’s adoption annulled is Amanda’s punk brother Freddy (Searle) . . . except he, though he hardly realizes it, is really the puppet of the shared Wiggins and Forsythe family lawyer Ross Atherton (Warde).

The cops question Peter (Richare Denning) and Ellen Wiggins (Frances Rafferty).

Despite the potentially cloying scenes where moppet Tina and wrinkled Al declare undying love for each other, this is a surprisingly entertaining movie. One oddity is that the adult Wigginses seem prepared to leave Tina unsupervised for considerable periods of time—periods during which she indulges her passion for baking cookies in the family’s gas stove; one can’t help feeling that, if Freddy failed to negate the adoption on his original premise, he might more successfully pursue a charge along the lines of reckless neglect.

Some of the dialogue is underinspired:

Ellen: Is something wrong?
Al: Let’s say something isn’t right.

On Amazon.com: Lady At Midnight