
“Exposing Today's Most Alarming Crime Ring!”
A police detective uses any means possible to trap a gang of shoplifters.
Release Date: 5/13/1950
Runtime: 74 minutes
Languages: English
Director: Charles Lamont
00Companies: Universal International Pictures
Countries: United States of America
CinemaSerf
When the daughter of a judge is caught shoplifting, she has to sign a confession in order to go free. "Faye" (Mona Freeman) is not the only one in the shop who's been apprehended in this annual $100m scam - "Jeff" (Scott Brady) has also been arrested and he is determined to befriend his new rookie friend. She works in the library and receives a visitor summoning her to a bar where she meets up with the manipulative "Ina" (Andrea King) and now she finds herself involved in a blackmail plot to ensure she continues to lift goods to order for the gang. Luckily for all, "Jeff" isn't quite what he seems and what now ensues is a decently enough paced drama that illustrates just how easy it is to steal and just how lucrative a business it is for the perpetrators. There's a strangely miscast, and rather weedy, Tony Curtis aboard here as the rather un-menacing enforcer "Pepe" and at times it adopts a slightly documentary approach to the polling techniques used to ensnare these criminals, but there's enough chemistry between Brady and Freeman and King reminds me of a baddie from a Rathbone/Bruce "Sherlock Holmes" film. The ending is a bit rushed, but it's still worth a watch if you want to know how easy it is to sell-on a dodgy three-blade electric razor!

Scott Brady
Jeff Andrews

Mona Freeman
Faye Burton

Andrea King
Ina Perdue

Tony Curtis
Pepe

Charles Drake
Herb Klaxon

Gregg Martell
The Champ

Larry Keating
Harry Dunson

Robert Gist
Barkie Neff
Michael Raffetto
Sheriff Bascom

Rock Hudson
Si Swanson - Store Detective

Nestor Paiva
Deputy Sheriff Gomez

Paul Fierro
Pedro - Mechanic
1943