MIRTH! MURDER! MELODY! MYSTERY! AND GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS!
At a burlesque theater in New York City, a dead body is found; police investigate, but it’s really up to a performer (Barbara Stanwyck) and a comic (Michael O’Shea) to find the killer. William Wellman provides lovely entertainment (based on a novel by a former stripper) at a seedy theater whose business idea is cheap laughs and tantalizing thrills. The atmosphere behind the scenes is lively and full of rivalry between the catty performers; watching a very sympathetic Stanwyck and O’Shea flirt and work together to figure out what’s going on is a lot of fun. The murder mystery is adequate enough, but not the film’s most valuable ingredient.
1943-U.S. 91 min. B/W. Produced by Hunt Stromberg. Directed by William Wellman. Screenplay: James Gunn. Novel: Gypsy Rose Lee (”The G-String Murders”). Music: Arthur Lange. Cast: Barbara Stanwyck (Deborah Hoople/Dixie Daisy), Michael O’Shea (Biff Brannigan), J. Edward Bromberg (S.B. Foss), Iris Adrian, Marion Martin, Pinky Lee.
