Mystery Street (1950)
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- Vivian (Jan Sterling), a B-girl working at 'The Grass Skirt', is being brushed off by her rich, married boyfriend. To confront him, she hijacks drunken customer Henry Shanway (Marshall Thompson) and his car from Boston to Cape Cod, where she strands Henry...and is never seen again. Months later, a skeleton is found (sans clothes or clues) on a lonely Cape Cod beach. Using the macabre expertise of Harvard forensic specialist Dr. McAdoo (Bruce Bennett), Lt. Pete Morales (Ricardo Montalban) must work back from bones to the victim's identity, history, and killer. Will he succeed in time to save an innocent suspect?
- Actors:
- Ricardo Montalban, Sally Forrest, Bruce Bennett, Elsa Lanchester, Marshall Thompson, Jan Sterling, Edmon Ryan, Betsy Blair, Wally Maher, Ralph Dumke, Willard Waterman, Walter Burke, Don Shelton, Elsie Baker, George Brand, Ralph Brooks, Douglas Carter, Mack Chandler, George Cooper, John Crawford
- Directors:
- John Sturges
- Writers:
- Sydney Boehm, Richard Brooks
- Others:
- Leonard Spigelgass
- Aka:
- Murder at Harvard
- Studio:
- CG ENTERTAINMENT SRL
- Genres:
- Classics, Drama, Thrillers
Reviews (1) of Mystery Street
Fifties Noir. - Mystery Street review by Steve
This absorbing film noir was intended to be mostly of interest for its demonstration of the new science of forensics, as a Harvard Professor and a Cape Cod detective solve the murder of a young woman whose remains are discovered in the isolated sand dunes of the peninsular. Only by then she's a skeleton and the police have no other clues.
Bruce Bennett plays the academic and Ricardo Montalban the resolute cop. And they are fine and the investigation is actually fascinating as they build their case from nothing. But... the real bonus is the performances of a couple of the support cast. Jan Sterling as the seen-it-all peroxide floozy who gets killed...
...And particularly Elsa Lanchester as her duplicitous landlady. There's an efficient (Oscar nominated) script and a compelling story, but she really rips it up and is genuinely very funny though her dialogue isn't at all. She's one of Hollywood's greatest character actors and she elevates all her scenes.
John Sturges directs a spare, exciting B thriller. But there is also a sense of sadness for the dead girl and the jeopardy of the innocent suspect (Marshall Thompson). The locations in Boston and rural Massachusetts broke new ground for film noir and John Alton's photography is typically expressive. Maybe the mystery is, why isn't this better known?