Black Angel

When they were in love, Dan Duryea wrote a hit song for his wife, Constance Dowling. Now they're estranged, she won't see him, and he's making a living playing at a gin mill and taking his pay in product. He tries to see her, but she won't let him in. She will let in night club owner Peter Lorre. When Duryea wakes from his latest drunk, she's dead. Suspicion falls on Duryea, but his flophouse buddy, Wallace Ford, locks him in his room when he's that drunk. Despite Duryea's insistence, Miss Dowling's new regular boyfriend, John Phillips, is found guilty of her murder. Duryea and Phillips' wife, June Vincent, go into partnership to prove Lorre did it.

Roy William Neill's last movie before his death later that year at age 59, is a nice little murder mystery. Despite his use of a lot of film noir visual cues, it doesn't feel like one; the world is not corrupt, just wrong. It is full of nice performances, including ones by Broderick Crawford and Hobart Cavanaugh, and it plays well with Lorre's patented creep character.