Tonight’s offering is a right little gem that I discovered recently. It’s a ‘B’ movie film noir about a private detective who, in an effort to get half of a $10,000 reward, put up to find a crooked judge who is hiding from the law.

The private eye, is approached by a reporter asking him for his help in tracking down the fugitive judge and she tells the investigator that the judge is hiding in a private mental hospital. Posing as a mentally ill man with the reporter posing as the man’s wife, the pair approach a psychiatrist and get the investigator placed in the same mental hospital as the judge is hiding in.

The investigator enters the hospital and embarks on his search for the errant judge and the co-conspirators who have hidden him in a place that the judge believes to be as secure as possible. The investigation is going quite well until the plot to find the judge starts to be uncovered by the criminals which then places the private eye in extreme danger.

I had not encountered this film until recently when it popped up during a search for 1940’s film noir and although the film runs only for a little over an hour, it packs in the sort of tension, drama and action that you’d expect to find in a much longer and more lavishly budgeted film. Technically it’s a workaday film but there are some nice lighting touches in this movie such as the investigator’s first view of the hospital when all you see of him is his shadow, from a street light and a lit match.

This film is well worth a go and I hope you will like it as much as I enjoyed it.