As I recall this little slice of b&w exotica got quite a bit of buzz back then. No doubt, that was because of the naughty innuendo and unusual locale. 1954 was before Hawaii became a state or showed up on weekly TV, so the backgrounds and people were still foreign to American living rooms. Anyway, the plot's anything but tight, running two or three threads at the same time. There's no need to recap what others have already done in detail. What carries the film are the Hawaiian 'mise-en-scene', colorful characters, and good acting. Honolulu's Half Acre amounts to a hellish maze of rickety stairs, balconies, and walkways, all used to good effect by director Auer. Couple that with a noir character like Chester (Corey), a bosomy slut like Rose (Windsor, of course), and a slimy yucko like Ippy (Strong), along with other shady types, and who cares about plot logic. As a result, the visuals and characters rivet even when the narrative doesn't. Still, what's with Tubby (White) who gets bloodlessly shot in the shoulder and seconds later pulls a Tarzan escape with perfect coordination. Even cowboy matinees are more realistic than that, and who knew matinees better than Republic. All in all, it looks like a feature length appeal was aimed at, including something of a 'name' cast and a spicy story. Still, I'd like to know how the results actually performed dollar-wise. Nonetheless, the movie's not without points of interest, along with an ending that is not predictable, plus a Hawaii that sure doesn't show up on tourist brochures.

Dismissed as a sleeper, this thriller has become possibly the most durable of Republic's mid-1950's features. John Auer directs this gritty screenplay of Steve Fisher. Chet Chester(Wendell Corey)is well known and the popular owner of a hot Honolulu night spot, despite the fact that he is an ex-racketeer. When a former cohort comes to "shake-down" Chet, his girlfriend Sally(Nancy Gates)kills the man and Chester takes the blame assuming he has enough money socked away to avoid a lengthy prison sentence. Meanwhile a Dona Williams(Evelyn Keyes)arrives from stateside to see Chet thinking he is her long-lost husband believed to have been killed during the attack of Pearl Harbor. When Sally is murdered, Chet escapes custody and runs to hide in Hell's Half Acre, a rundown area of Honolulu where low-lives, wannabees and various degrees of the criminal element find a place to dwell. Keye Luke plays a sympathetic Police Chief and Philip Ahn is perfect as the story's creepy villain. Elsa Lanchester is cast as Lida O'Reilly, a comical and doting cab driver. Also in the cast: Marie Windsor, Jesse White and Robert Costa.

Hell's Half Acre (habitués just call it `the Acre') is a rabbit warren of tenements and dens of iniquity in post-war Honolulu – a South-Seas casbah. It's also the title of John H. Auer's movie which has the distinction – between the lapse of the Charlie Chan cycle and the arrival of TV dramas like Hawaii 5-0 and Magnum P.I. – of being the only film noir set in the (then) Hawaiian Territory. A little clumsy and four-square (with little of visual interest), it boasts an offbeat story line and a dandy cast.Stateside, widowed young mother Evelyn Keyes hears a recording by a songwriter from the Islands who, she's told, has been imprisoned for killing a crime lord. Certain phrases in the song remind her of her husband, presumed lost on the Arizona during the bombing of Pearl Harbor. She breaks off her engagement and flies to Honolulu; her guide to the local culture is cabdriver Elsa Lanchester, a `character.' Police Chief Keye Luke arranges for Keyes to see the mystery man (Wendell Corey), but when the prisoner learns that his current girlfriend (Nancy Gates) has been murdered, he escapes custody. Keyes penetrates deeper into the Acre to find him, while his underworld associates, their greed and curiosity piqued, try to find her....All too briefly, Hell's Half Acre features Marie Windsor, as the wife of fish-and-poi slinger Jesse White (she's two-timing him with sinister Philip Ahn). The crummy rooms Windsor and White occupy in the Acre are one of three main locales, the others being Corey's Waikiki beach house and The Polynesian Paradise, the nightclub he owns (technical advisor to the film was Don The Beachcomber). There's an elevated quotient of violence, particularly violence to women, and the somewhat murky story isn't sweetened up (though touristy material sometimes intrudes). Auer never got a crack at first-rate material to direct (maybe he never showed he could do it), but Hell's Half Acre holds its own against his better-known The City That Never Sleeps. Like so many of the better noirs, its surprises emerge from out of the past.

This little gem of a film noir B movie is about a woman trying to track down her long lost husband in Hawaii after the War (WWII) where he was supposed to have died. In the process she finds herself in the middle of an underworld power struggle. Beautifully filmed in Hawaii with Ms. Keyes really working those facial expressions, as she tended to do. The film is tight, cynical and at times redeeming. Just a good little film.