Review of Lured

Lured (1947)
6/10
Well-acted detective story...some funny, cynical asides, though the script doesn't hold together
7 August 2011
Early directorial effort from Douglas Sirk offers an offbeat role for Lucille Ball, ably playing an American dancer in London who is enlisted by Scotland Yard to catch a poem-writing serial killer who preys on showgirls. Leo Rosten's screenplay (culled from perhaps various treatments by Jacques Companéez, Simon Gantillon, and Ernest Neuville) is loosely-hinged at best, thin at worst. A sequence with Boris Karloff as a delusional designer goes on far too long, as does a tiresome thread with Ball working as a maid for a possible pervert. Entertaining on a minor level, especially for Lucy-addicts (her dryly comic exasperation is very funny, as is her rapport with the inspectors on the case). George Sanders is ideally cast as a wealthy nightclub owner who takes a shine to our heroine--and who wouldn't? Ball may be photographed in black-and-white, but she exudes both sophisticated glamor and attractive street-smarts. She's a peach. **1/2 from ****
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