Exposed

                
Director: George Blair
Year: 1947
Rating:5.5

"He is a tough egg. Be careful", "I'll try not to scramble him" replies the tough fast talking gumshoe who spits out dialogue like a cheap paperback pulp detective. The difference here being that this detective is a blonde with more curves than her spiffy mile long convertible. Business must be good. Belinda eats at swanky restaurants, has that beautiful convertible, a spacious office with a secretary and muscle who works for her and an apartment that should be a pictorial in Home Design. No Sam Spade down at the heels life style for her. And she deserves her $75 a day compared to Spade's $25 - she wraps up this murder case like a ham sandwich in less than 24 hours.

 


Belinda is played by Adele Mara who was discovered by Xavier Cugat who had an eye for the ladies and married most of them - but in this case she was just a singer and dancer in the band and was seen by someone from Columbia and signed up. Somewhere along the way though she ended up at Republic like so many did who didn't quite have enough to be an A player. She is great here as a fearless dive right in detective who is always a step ahead. She ended up marrying Roy Huggins, whose name you may have seen in the production credits of shows like 77 Sunset Strip, Cheyenne and Maverick.

 



At 59 minutes this moves along like it has a dinner appointment at Delmonico's Steak House. Belinda is having lunch at a restaurant  - the usual, the waiter inquires - the usual - when a guy called Chicago (Bob Steele - big B Western film star) - from not surprisingly Chicago - saddles up to her table and with a gun under his paper tries to kidnap her - but her palooka employee Iggy (William Haade) happens to be coming in and sees what is going on and gets her away.  Back at her office she is hired by a wealthy industrialist to snoop on his stepson who is taking out large sums of money. When she goes to meet the industrialist later that day he is dead - Iggy says well that was an easy $750 - paid in advance - she says he may be dead but we were paid. And the case is on with another murder and a bunch of shifty looking suspects. There is one gonzo fist fight between Iggy and Chicago that is lovely.

 

Always enjoyable seeing a lady detective from that era. There were not a lot of them. There still aren't. Seems like this had the making of a series but no go. Also appearing is Robert Armstrong as her cop father, Adrian Booth aka Lorna Gray as the daughter and Mark Roberts as the stepson.