Hold on, let me get this straight - Maddy Haley/Gladys Larue (Claire Trevor) goes undercover as a drug agent, gets mistaken for a crime lord's moll, shoots the bad guy (Raymond Burr), gets kidnapped by another undercover cop (Fred MacMurray) posing as a drug dealer, and winds up with said cop in a sleazy Mexican hotel room! Not knowing each other's true identity, why didn't Haley just beat it the first chance she got? It didn't make any sense to me. Oh yeah, and later on, she still had her gun! Huh?
Well I guess you just weren't supposed to think about stories like this too much. This one started out like it could have been a noir style crime drama, but veered into questionable comedic territory before dissolving into something that didn't quite work on either level. Probably the goofiest part of the story occurred early when Trevor's character tried to catch Pete Ritchie's (Burr) eye and he wasn't going for it. Wouldn't you say she was a bit over the top in trying to get his attention? Wouldn't it make YOU suspicious?
Anyway, all is not lost. If you take your thinking cap off this doesn't have to be so bad. I thought the switcheroo involving the dead Mexican driver Miguel and a local town drunk was a hoot. It seemed a little callous of MacMurray's character, but by that time he probably figured he couldn't fight the script and just went with it. Too bad the chemistry with Trevor didn't really click because this could have been a little bit better than it turned out. In fact, just like the plane in the middle of the story, this one wound up simply running out of gas.
Well I guess you just weren't supposed to think about stories like this too much. This one started out like it could have been a noir style crime drama, but veered into questionable comedic territory before dissolving into something that didn't quite work on either level. Probably the goofiest part of the story occurred early when Trevor's character tried to catch Pete Ritchie's (Burr) eye and he wasn't going for it. Wouldn't you say she was a bit over the top in trying to get his attention? Wouldn't it make YOU suspicious?
Anyway, all is not lost. If you take your thinking cap off this doesn't have to be so bad. I thought the switcheroo involving the dead Mexican driver Miguel and a local town drunk was a hoot. It seemed a little callous of MacMurray's character, but by that time he probably figured he couldn't fight the script and just went with it. Too bad the chemistry with Trevor didn't really click because this could have been a little bit better than it turned out. In fact, just like the plane in the middle of the story, this one wound up simply running out of gas.