Deusa do Mal

The store where Marjorie Rambeau buys her borscht has doubled the price, because a protection racket gang has come to town. She asks her lawyer, Brian Donlevy to investigate. Since she is his best client, he does so, when not distracted by night-club singer Dorothy Lamour. Then a man is killed where she works and the police collar her, so Donlevy takes an interest in her case. He never notices that his secretary, Claire Trevor, loves him.

I had to look at a rather poor copy of this movie, and was not impressed. Despite a good cast that includes Irene Hervey, Robert Armstrong, and Sidney Miller, and is derived from a Craig Rice mystery, there are too many plot holes for what is intended as a light-hearted investigation; writer-director Lewis Foster's script is too erratic in all departments. It looks like Jack Benny's sole movie production was intended as a wise-cracking 'tec in a Raymond-Chandler setting, and everything got caught up in movie cliches.