Director Edgar Ulmer was a great hand at some great noir dramas on budgets as big as dental floss. But his task her with Murder Is My Beat was too much for him.Detective Paul Langton tracks down and brings in fugitive nightclub singer Barbara Payton wanted for murder of someone whose charred body is found in her fire place. After that Payton is tried and convicted, but says she saw the murdered man big as life outside on the train platform while Langton is taking her to prison. So what does this cop do? He chucks away his job and career because he has the hots for Payton. The last time anyone behaved so dumb in a noir film it was Robert Mitchum over Jane Greer in Out Of The Past. But that was light years a better film.Selena Royle is in this film and it's her farewell big screen appearance. She was having blacklist troubles and I will say that Murder Is My Beat was better than Robot Monster which she previously did after MGM dropped her. Robert Shayne took some time off from being Inspector Henderson on Superman to be Langton's captain and friend who tells him in no uncertain terms what a chump he is.So did Payton commit murder? For that you have to watch this classic inflicted on the public by Allied Artists.

***SPOILERS*** Given the assignment to bring convicted murderess Eden Lane, Barbara Payton, to the city lock-up the detective Ray Patrick, Paul Langton, escorting her takes a powder together Eden after she supposedly saw the man, Frank Deane, that she was accused of murdering as she and Patrick were on their way by train back to state prison. This has Det. Patrick's good friend and boss Capt.Bert Rawley,Robert Shayne, mad as hell in allowing against his better judgment to have him escort her knowing that being so drop dead gorgeous Eden can work of his heartstrings and have him do, like a love sick puppy, anything that she wants.Despite dropping his guard and planning to later drop his pants, in romancing Eden, it turns out that Det. Patrick's believing Eden's story that her murder victim was in fact alive turns out to have some truth to it. Enough truth that the outraged Capt. Rawley gives him an additional 24 hours to find Deane's killer if in fact there was one. What later comes out in the wash is that someone was murdered in all this confusion but it wasn't Dean and the person who murdered him and his accomplice who was later to murder Eden's former roommate Pasty Flint, Tracy Roberts, who turned out to be the real culprits in all this. As for Eden who was facing the San Quentin gas chamber she turned out to be the innocent victim in all this confusing mess!One of the last films that the beautiful Barbara Payton stared in before she ended up addicted on drugs and turning tricks to support her habit that eventually lead to her untimely death at the age of 39 in 1966. Decent 1950's film noir with Det. Patrick at first not believing Eden's story that Frank Dean was still alive but little by little realizing that she was in fact telling the truth. That to the point where he was willing to not only end up losing his job but ending up behind bars for helping a fugitive from justice escape justice. Justice was indeed served when the real killer or killers blew their cover and ended up behind bars for their crimes. Crimes that turned out to be independent of each other.

A detective chases down an accused murderess, but en route to prison he begins to have his doubts. Although another ultra-low-budget (including some of the shoddiest rear projection work I've ever seen) noir from Ulmer, early hopes that this might be another DETOUR were dashed. Like RUTHLESS, it's something of a disappointment. For the first half it seems to be going somewhere, but then it loses traction and meanders towards an unsatisfying conclusion. However, Ulmer pulls off a few terrific moments (especially those regarding trains), and I do think the first half is quite compelling. Paul Langton makes for a good leading man, with something of a Jean Gabin quality. More notably, this is the final appearance of the tragic Barbara Payton, whose work I've previously praised in TRAPPED and KISS TOMORROW GOODBYE. Her melancholy, passive performance here is pretty much the polar opposite of Ann Savage, but her vulnerability is an asset. I need to check out more of her films. The film definitely leaves something to be desired, but it has some charm and talent in it.

Mid way through this movie there is a scene at a figurine factory complete with workers on the assembly line. It has nothing really to do with the movie and looks like it was taken straight taken from one of those 50s instructional films. It may have been the peak of Murder is my Beat.