If you tend to like minor B-movies of the '40s, this is definitely one to see. Male lead Damian O'Flynn as a tough private detective and female lead Helen Parrish as a younger friend of his who tries to make sure her hero doesn't get hurt both have charisma. The editing never gets slow, and the script is delightfully jam-packed with classic cliché lines of the movies and of the era, but serving a watchable story.Neil Hamilton, eventually of the Batman TV series, is effective in one of the supporting roles. Gaspere Biondolillo plays his usual straightforward heavy. The print available on the inexpensive Alpha DVD is good.

The cop father of a private detective is killed when he stumbles on a criminal enterprise. The private detective decides to investigate the case in the three days left to him before he goes into the army. Much better then it sounds crime drama is a breezy little film, it runs under an hour. With nary a pause once the film gets up and running this is a darkly comedic film about a criminal organization that seems to be harking back to prohibition days. The veteran cast including Dick Purcell and Niel Hamilton really sell the story to the point that I misdirected as to what was going on. This is a superior little film thats worth popping in to the DVD player should you happen to rent or buy it. (Leave a comment)

There is the thrill of low-budget film noir. And there is the frustration of meandering, uninteresting movies made on the cheap. This one falls into the second category.The Spot is the name of a nightclub. The film is about a policeman whose father has been killed by gangsters. He heads out to track them down.Maybe it was the bad print. Maybe it's me. But I felt I'd seen this a hundred times, most of those times better than it is here.It has promise, too: The cop is fascinated with a woman who plays records she introduces over juke boxes. They then meet. Now, though this was made well before I was born, I have seen that kind of juke box. And it is incredibly fascinating: When I was a teenager, I wandered into a bar that still had such a device. I always liked juke boxes, in bars or diners. But this one was different. You talked to it and a sultry sounding female voice talked back to you! That is addressed here but dropped into the general, uninteresting stew.The movie has one thing going for it: In a small role, it features the very young Anne Jeffreys. What a beauty she was, and doubtless still is!

***SPOILERS*** Soon to be inducted into the US Army, as a second lieutenant no less, private dick Eddie Delaney, Damian O'Flynn, gets involved with this gang of tire smugglers who gunned down his dad police Sergeant Tim Delaney, Robert Homans, who uncovered the gangs secret storehouse. The tire storehouse was already ripped off by former bootlegger, and now rubber tire smuggler, Marty Clark, Jack La Rue. Clark is a slippery eel of a hood who, unlike Big Al "Scarface" Capone, outfoxed the authorities during Prohibition days by not forgetting to pay his taxes.It later turns out that Clark ripped off the tire place from this unscrupulous businessman John Underwood, Neil Hamilton, who like the good and money hungry creep that he is wants to make a killing during wartime by dealing, in selling to the highest bidder, desperately needed rubber tires that the US military needs to defeat Hitler and Tojo. Determined to get his tires back Underwood hires Eddie to track down those who ripped him off with Eddie not at all knowing that Underwood is working against the very country that he as a soon to be a member of the US armed forces is sworn to defend.Interesting little movie that has to do with black market racketeering and this really cute radio disk-jockey Helen Parrish, Linda Ward, who gets involved with the tire smuggling operation. That happens when Helen unwitting answers a phone call telling her to announce a black-out, because of a possible Japanese or German air raid. This was done so that the killer of one of the main tire smugglers can go into action and knock off his victim and be able to get away, during all the confusion, while the light are turned out.On the run after being framed for at least two murders, Clark & Underwood, Eddie with the help of Helen, whom he calls every day on her radio show with song requests, uncover who's really behind these murders and it's someone very high up in the police department. This creep also want's to get in on the action, tire smuggling, by using his power and influence to protect the racketeers with a nice kickback of greenbacks for himself as a reward. I guess it's hard to put your kids through collage or get plastered with high priced booze every night on only a meager policeman's salary.Eddie saves the day and the country, from an acute rubber shortage, by uncovering who's the big man behind the rubber, or tire, smuggling racket and having him and his hoods put on ice together with the frozen tires that they were stealing. In the end pretty Helen Perrish, what a doll, promises to marry Eddie when he comes a marching home from the war. A war, WWII, that he has yet to have even participated in.