Grand Exit

Dashing Edmund Lowe plays insurance investigator Tom Fletcher who is hot on the trail of an arsonist. He is helped by his dedicated assistant John Grayson (Onslow Stevens) even though they both suspect each other eventually. Of course they are harassed by authority figures played by great character actors including Edward Van Sloan as the curmudgeonly board of directors and Robert Middlemass as Fire Chief Mulligan. Because Fletcher always demands a huge fee for his services, he finds himself one of the suspects in this latest rash of deliberate fires. A surprise plot-twist puts Fletcher and heroine/suspect Adrienne Martin (Ann Sothern) on the scent of the real firebug. This modest Columbia production was distinguished by several spectacular and real fire scenes that probably came from newsreel footage, all of which quickly found their way into the studio's stock-footage files. Good, tough dialogue and nice pacing by director Kenton.