Double Deal

The material here would have made a fine noir had it been made by a visual stylist; and coming from the Mecca of noir, RKO, I'm surprised at the straightforward filming. After all, many icons of noir are already present—the lonely bus, the seedy bar, the penniless male lead, and, of course, the queen of slutty vamps, Marie Windsor. Except here, she's playing a good girl, of all things, a role a thousand lesser actresses could have handled.

Nonetheless, it's a good little potboiler that manages to avoid many clichés of its kind. Everybody's conniving to get hold of an oil well that has gusher potential, including good guy Denning. But I'm especially impressed by Fay Baker who makes a scary hard-nosed villainess, plotting as ruthlessly as the men. The cast itself is full of colorful characters, especially Taylor Holmes who can't pass up anything that's spelled a-l-c-o-h-o-l. The script also includes a good surprise ending I didn't see coming. All in all, the 70-minutes is better than most programmers of the time, even if the great Marie Windsor is wasted.