It probably took me about an hour longer to watch this film than it's stated run time of sixty nine minutes; I just had to keep re-winding to pick up details and dialog that blew by too quickly to catch the first time around. Like the patter in my summary line above, or the clunky line from the police chief confronting a room full of reporters following Redfield's murder - "I'm going to put the guilty person in the chair if I have to build an electrical grandstand". An electrical grandstand? Just check your mental imagery of that one! I've seen Lew Ayres a couple of times now, but not in a picture like this. He had sort of a Jack Lemmon quality both in appearance and attitude. Of course Lemmon came by much later, so I guess you could say that Jack had a Lew Ayres-like quality coming out of "Murder With Pictures". Anyway, you get my drift.Well you better pay close attention, or you're going to miss details in the most unlikely of spots. Like Kent Murdock taking a shower with his pants on. Maybe the film makers knew that Meg Archer (Gail Patrick) would climb in there with him, but as a character in the story, he wouldn't have. Murdock's also shown wearing suspenders under his bathrobe without a shirt on. Does anyone get dressed like that? Just wondering.This one is my favorite though - at the newspaper photo shop department, when Meg comes looking for Murdock, she drops a key, presumably from Murdock's apartment. It was for Room 318, but in more than one shot, Murdock's apartment door clearly showed he lived in 315.Well, as in a lot of mystery pictures of the era, you have a bunch of credibility defying stuff, and this one has a boat load. I don't know how someone could shoot a guy in a room full of people and not know from what general direction the gunshot, excuse me, camera shot came from. It might have been silent in the picture, but you know that doesn't quite work. I'm sure it was necessary for all that intrigue over the missing negative, but still. I guess that's why I keep coming back for these programmers from the Thirties and Forties, just to see all the goofy stuff they tried to pass on movie goers of the era.

While there are enjoyable parts to this film, they have most to do with the wisecracking performances. There is just too much suspension of disbelief to work very well. The characters seem bound and determined to fit into the plot, even if the plot is particularly strained. The byplay between the stripper who has a contract to marry him, doesn't play very well, in my opinion. I know what comic relief is, but I really can't take anything seriously once she shows up. This is about murder, and yet there is little care taken to protect those who are victimized. Cameras come into play frequently and the provide us with the clues we need. There is so much evidence and such carelessness by the authorities that it really detracts. I may be taking this too seriously, however; it's not much of a heavyweight film. The conclusion left me utterly cold.

I wound up with this movie on one of those dubious £3.99 four-packs full of 'films you've never heard of'. And, well, on a slow Sunday, I treated myself to the experience...And, frankly, I was more than pleasantly surprised. Snappy banter plus strong performance from the leads made up for a transparent plot and lackluster 'action' sequences.Gangsters, reporters, dames in distress (and even a particularly dismal 'car chase scene') - all the traditional trappings of the 'noir' genre, but given a slightly humorous edge by Ayres' enjoyable performance as a wise-cracking reporter.

In a nutshell, Lew Ayers is a newspaperman who tries to scoop all others in his field. Gail Patrick as Meg (nick-named NutMeg in this film) is wonderful as a daughter out to avenge a wrong done to her father. Gail Patrick is a much under-rated actress, and one wonders why she didn't get better roles in big budget A-movies. If you really like Patrick, I recommend that you see: "Quiet Please, Murder", which is a far superior B-movie mystery than is this film. This neat little suspense yarn is quite atmospheric, with courtroom dramatics, fast gunplay, and a tight little mystery that can only be solved by a picture photographed by one of the newspapermen present when a high-priced criminal lawyer falls over dead. Of course, the picture disappears. Did the killer take it? Only one way to find out!