Convicted murderer makes a confession to a crowd of reporters.
A Monogram with a bit of jump in its pancake, care of the King Brothers! This movie is no visual masterpiece. We have "Chinese fire drill" style fight scenes (complete with a one-take failed-to-connect roundhouse punch) and good ol' reliable shadows from prison bars (yawn) for stylistic flair. But the story is fast paced and the actors are likeable. Minutes before his execution, a prisoner confesses that yes, he is guilty... but that he committed the murder on behalf of a powerful man who paid him to do so. Before he can identify this man, the convict is himself killed by a poisoned dart! District Attorney Roger Phillips, played by Ricardo Cortez, confines everyone in the room and attempts to identify the guilty party. He is aided by his girlfriend, "girl reporter" Joan Woodbury who manages to poke just about everyone in the eye with her kooky hat feather.
Director Phil Rosen was a workhorse director who ended his long career cranking out "quickies" or "little pictures," as B's were sometimes called. In 1948 he collapsed while filming The Sins of the Fathers for Quebec Productions, in an attempt to start a B-movie industry in Canada. The Montreal Gazette reported that he returned to filming the next day, "with the aid of a wheelchair and an attending nurse"!
Cortez and Woodbury do a little Thin Man sparring but without the sex or cocktails. Hat feather not shown.
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