Watched: 04/12/2026
Format: Amazon
Viewing: First
Director: Arnold Laven
We're just going to slowly make our way through the Ruth Roman filmography, I guess.
I had no idea what this was about, but it's a bit of 1950's pro-FBI propaganda. It makes sure we, the citizens and tax-payers, understand how the FBI is working tirelessly on crimes big and small.
When an FBI agent, a family man, is killed, Broderick Crawford is asked to pick up all three of his open cases to figure out which case was the one that got his pal murdered. And, much as in real life, things move a lot faster now that one of their own was the victim.
1) A guy who is going to jail rather than name who hired him to move hot cars across state lines. He has a lovely wife at home who is blind.
2) A murderer is hiding out in Los Angeles and the only clue is his hot girlfriend (Martha Hyer) is around
3) A hot widow (Ruth Roman) has someone calling her and asking for the insurance money left by her husband.
The distinctly not hot FBI man, Crawford (who looks like someone we should call "Uncle Albert"), has to chase each of these cases down, and it's *a lot* of plot and minimal characterization. Like everyone else in the movie, he may or may not be considering putting the moves on Roman.
I don't really want to get too much into each plotline. It's a procedural, and as the less relevant cases get closed, we narrow down to the likelihood that the remaining case is the one containing the murderer. What's odd is that when they do wrap it up, they never really explain why he killed the FBI man or a witness. He just says "I had to".
Did you? Or did you just really want to?
I didn't hate the movie, but it doesn't have a lot of highs or lows. I can genuinely say I didn't know how it would unfold, so good on that. Crawford's fine, Roman kind of carries the thing, and it's not a bad time at the movies.
But it's a reminder that in 1954, men might have found women walking alone at midnight in a cemetery looking upset and *still* think it was time to try to pick them up.
Mid-20th Century fellas, come on. Simmer down.
Spoiler: the killer is Uncle Fred in Sixteen Candles.
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