Review of Mystery Street (1950) by Jason C — 06 May 2010

Highly entertaining police procedural/wrong man flick with Ricardo Montalban trying to solve the mystery of an unidentified skeleton. The film is loaded with black humor and colorful characters... especially Elsa Lanchester, who absolutely steals the show as the unscrupulous landlady Mrs.

Smerrling. I tend to put procedurals in a separate category or offshoot of noir, but I still enjoy them. I like watching the evidence unfold, and chasing down clues, and blind alleys and the interplay of luck and skill.

This movie handles those elements quite well and always manages to keep things interesting. And with John Alton behind the camera, you're guaranteed fantastic noirish visuals. I've read some other reviews online, and a lot of people seem to think it drags, but I didn't think so at all.

I was pretty engaged throughout the length of the film. It does have a bizarre, fragmented narrative, but it totally worked for me. One unusual aspect is that this is one of the few noirs (maybe the only one) I've seen that was shot on location in Boston.

It ends on a very out-of-place plug for Harvard (some kind of thank you for their participation, I suppose).