Police lieutenant (Dennis O'Keefe) and a nosey reporter (Frances Neal) pursue bank robbers led by a scar-faced lady gangster (Judith Anderson) named Slade. Disappointing because it's less about Anderson's character than O'Keefe's. It's a nice change of pace for Judith Anderson, who is more well-known for her serious parts in films like Rebecca. She gets to sling some snappy gangster lingo, which I'm sure was fun for her. I just wish there was more of her. For their part, O'Keefe and Neal are okay if a little bland. The grumpy cop/lady reporter dynamic had become a cliché by this point, done best perhaps by the Torchy Blane series. The supporting cast is good, featuring the likes of Arthur Shields, Marc Lawrence, Eric Blore, and pretty blonde Marion Martin. Short runtime helps but focus on the boring cop/reporter plot rather than the gangster stuff is a major flaw.

Sometimes pre-war movie propaganda can take a strange turn, when they surface decades later. Lady Scarface, starring veteran actress Judith Anderson, as Slade, (long before she was tapped as a real "Dame"), gives us a tough female gangster boss, who rules with an iron fist over her small posse of cheap crimesters.This movie, directed by Frank Woodruff, spins a tale of murder and mayhem, bringing Dennis O'Keefe (Lt. Bill Mason) and Frances Neal (Ann), together as the cutie-pie couple who bring down Slade and her crew with surprising wit and affection.This film was clearly made to send the message that women should "toughen up", and be strong - especially in the face of approaching war. Writers Arnaud d'Usseau and Richard Collins, focus on juxtaposing newspaper reporter Ann and crime queen Slade. Ann is much braver and more honest than our hero cop, Bill, and she literally saves the day. Slade, for all of her ruthless nature, spends most of her time trapped – like a wild animal - in a tiny claustrophobic hotel room, pacing about and tersely snapping orders to her male minions. Like many women of the period who stayed home, Slade comes off weaker than her plucky female counterpart, Ann, who freely moves about the city to gather clues and get her woman (so to speak). A strange pairing, indeed!Lady Scarface is a rare prize found among the TCM film archives, so enjoy it the next time it comes to late-night TV.

`Always leave them wanting more' is one of the hoary axioms of show business, but why there isn't more of Lady Scarface in Lady Scarface is a better mystery than anything the movie has to offer. The title role, a tough Chicago mob boss, falls to Judith Anderson, who more often than not was the best thing in any movie where she happened to appear (e.g. her Mrs. Danvers in Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca). Title character or no, she takes second billing to Dennis O'Keefe as a minion of the law pursuing her; the billing accurately reflects the screen time each is allotted. It's a pity, since, apart from Anderson, Lady Scarface is just another print struck from the template of light crime programmers. The bulk of the movie has to do with O'Keefe's following money to New York in order to smoke out the gang. And, to cover all the bases, there's mistaken identity involving a newlywed couple; comic relief in the form of a beef-witted hotel detective and fussy Eric Blore; and a matey romance between O'Keefe and Frances Neal.But Anderson took her assignments seriously; she brings the same steel to Lady Scarface as she would later to Lady Macbeth. (The movie could have settled for a lesser villain, and Anderson should have held out for a better movie.) The last scene, in which she steals into the Leonard Sheldon Hotel disguised as a chambermaid, looks very much like the final confrontation between James Bond and Rosa Klebb in From Russia With Love. Was that an hommage, or just a steal?

Here's one more little jewel from the RKO collection. An exciting thriller, well plotted, amusing and concise (it hardly arrives to 70 minutes!). But what makes this film so special is its revolutionary treatment of the noir's conventions and the advanced-for-its-times feminist touch: here, the devious gangster is a woman (fantastic Judith Anderson)instead of a man, opposite to a brave female journalist who will help the police to catch her. The film deals admirably with the confusion game, relaying on the male centric point of view in noir's genre only to turn it down: the male main characters appear here as incompetent (those policemen who think they go after a man because they can't bear the idea of being defeated by a woman) and weak (the whole male gang is completely dominated by the powerful lady Scarface).Without doubts, "Lady Scarface" is one to watch! Don't miss either "The Curtain Call", from the same director, Frank Woodruff, and a funny screenplay by Dalton Trumbo.