Watched: 11/11/2025
Format: TCM Noir Alley
Viewing: First
Director: Robert Gordon
A cheap and cheerful B-noir from 1947, Blind Spot is a quick watch that depends on charm of its talent and two or three gags to keep it moving.
The film was programming on TCM's Noir Alley, which I confess I am not watching as much as I should be of late. The good news is that I found myself, once again, enjoying the intro and outro by noirista Eddie Muller as much or more than the movie.
This film follows an alcoholic writer of novels with an artistic bent (Chester Morris) who, while on a bender, goes to his publisher's office to try and sneak in and tear up his contract, which he has decided is unfair. While there, he meets a sultry blonde (Constance Dowling) and argues with his publisher in front of a successful writer of mysteries (Steven Geray). It is suggested that Morris switch to writing mysteries to make more money, and he agrees to do so.
He retreats to the bar in the lobby of the publisher's building and makes time with the blonde, who has just quit after the publisher got handsy.
That night, the publisher is found dead, and Morris seems to be the suspect. But the evidence is circumstantial.
It's a lost-time mystery as the now sober Morris tries to pull the pieces together, including possibly condemning himself as the murderer. It seems the technique he dreamed up for his own murder mystery novel is what was used to kill the publisher. Meanwhile, both Dowling and Geray are working overtime to assist the writer.
It's no award winner, but it plays like a solid novella or short story, and the characters are colorful. Morris and Dowling play very well off each other, even if she seems drawn to him for absolutely no reason. And part of the cost-savings appears in overly long scenes where the same ideas keep getting conveyed as we work to fill the necessary runtime.
It's absolutely not crucial viewing, but you could do way worse. Oddly, it would also fit in neatly with Criterion's current "Black Out Noir" showcase of film's where a lead is trying to account for lost time while they were drugged, asleep, drunk, hallucinating, etc...
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