Private Detective

"The dirty heel," mutters detective Jane Wyman of the Nationwide Detective Agency. She refers to sleazy lawyer Morgan Conway, who is scheming with a client to swipe his own child's inherited fortune.

Soon enough, the client (a first class rat himself) is murdered—but who did it? The lawyer? The ex-wife? The chauffeur? What about the ex-wife's new fiancé?

Jane Wyman is lively and likable in this very entertaining and compact B mystery. Dick Foran co-stars as Wyman's fiancé, a cop working the same murder case. He would very much like for her to hurry up and marry him and "retire" from her job—however, Wyman is always at least a step ahead of him in the investigation, and is clearly the brains of this couple.

Max Rosenbloom is a fellow cop, Foran's partner in crime fighting; part comic relief and part muscle, he breaks down doors and makes encouraging comments. Good old Joseph Crehan is the police captain begging for some results from his detectives. Foran gives it a game effort…but boy, is his character boring! To be fair, I suppose it wasn't his fault that the script gave Wyman all the good lines.

Overall, some good action scenes and rapid dialog delivery—along with Wyman's snappy performance—keep this one moving along nicely.