The Mysterious Mr. Valentine

The Mysterious Mr. Valentine packs a whole truckload of plot into its first few minutes. A sudden blowout forces a young woman (Linda Stirling) off a deserted road late at night; a tumbledown factory nearby holds the only prospect for help. A chemist inside seems distracted, even nervous, as well he might, since a body that was lying in the back laboratory amid the flasks and retorts has up and vanished. Nonetheless, he produces a bottle (of hooch) to offer Stirling a hospitable drink. Suddenly, as they toast, the door bursts open and a flashbulb goes off; the chemist's wife, it seems, has her suspicions. Scared witless, Stirling bolts outside and tears off in the nearest car, only to run a man down. But we know something that she does not: It's the corpse that was in the back room....

Too bad the rest of the movie, a Republic crime programmer, doesn't live up to its breakneck opening. It looks surprisingly good, though, with a noirish fondness for crisp, intricate shadows. The story involves a brash, smart-mouthed private eye (William Henry) who tries to help Stirling locate the `Mr. Valentine' who's blackmailing her about the hit-and-run with a series of unsettling phone calls. The clean cinematography, unfortunately, belies a muddy plot, with more characters and subplots than its brevity can accommodate. It still generates a passing amount of fun and suspense, and stands as an example of how the light mystery programmers so popular in the late1930s came to take on the more freighted style of the late 1940s.