William Lundigan stars in "A Shot in the Dark" from 1941, which also stars Regis Toomey, Ricardo Cortez, and Nan Wynn.
Phil Richards (Cortez) a friend of police detective Bill Ryder, has decided to sell his nightclub and other properties to a buyer from out of town, although a mob boss has offered him a higher price. Richards has always been clean, and is determined that his businesses are sold to someone with the same values.
Newspaperman Peter Kennedy (Lundigan) goes to the airport to interview the buyer; after a brief interview, the man is shot dead. Ryder dogs his detective friend as he works on the case.
Nan Wynn turns in a lovely performance as Dixie, the club singer, whom both Kennedy and Ryder are interested in. Sadly, this actress' career ended in 1947 when a cancerous growth was removed from her throat.
Not very good, but I do appreciate goofball Lundigan. He at least is lively. At the end, Ryder and Kennedy recap the case since the script wasn't written well enough to follow.
Appearing as Richard's girlfriend is the beautiful Maris Wixon. Her biography says she it all going to be a star but somehow didn't make it. She was much in demand for magazine covers, and the great photographer George Hurrell loved her. Warners put her under contract and loaned her to Monogram, a poverty row studio!
With the #metoo situation getting so much publicity today, and the fact that this actress was married for 59 years, one wonders if her refusal to play the Hollywood casting couch game didn't contribute to her lack of success. That actually happened quite a bit in Hollywood. And still does.
