Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

zardoz-13 This low budget PRC epic is a modestly entertaining murder mystery about a man who strangles women. "Dead Men Walk" director Sam Newfield and scenarists Helen Martin and Irwin Franklyn pull off one of the oldest and slickest tricks in the mystery genre: the use of the red herring. The big surprise in "The Lady Confesses" occurs well past the half-way point of what seems like a grown-up version of a Nancy Drew mystery.Vicki McGuire (Mary Beth Hughes of "The Oxbow Incident") is planning to marry Larry Craig (Hugh Beaumont of "The Blue Dahlia") when his long lost wife Norma (Barbara Slater of "Monsieur Verdoux") shows up to tell her that the marriage won't happen. According to Larry, his wife Norma and he haven't laid eyes on each other in seven years. Larry plans to wed Vicki until Norma throws a monkey wrench into the works. No sooner has Norma been in town than she is killed. The police learn that she was strangled by a wire. This sounds like a precursor to a 1970's Italian murder mystery. Captain Brown (Emmett Vogan of "Ride, Vaquero!") starts snooping around town to see whose alibi won't hold water. Everybody at a local night club--Club 711--assures the captain that Larry was passed out in the singer's room when the murder occurred. The catch is that nobody actually saw Larry Craig sleeping off a drunk on a couch. During a scene in a restaurant, Larry explains to Captain Brown that Norma inherited her money from her mother. Meanwhile, the most suspicious person, night club owner Lucky Brandon (Edmund MacDonald of "Detour") behaves even more suspiciously. All of this prompts Vicki to launch her own investigation and Captain Brown doesn't dissuade her from acting like a sleuth. The surprise is actually a matter of performance because the last person that you think murdered Norma is the last person you should suspect.

kidboots P.R.C. was one of the more humble poverty row studios - it's staple was westerns but it did have the occasional standout - "Bluebeard" (1944), "Strange Illusion" (1945), "Apology for Murder" (1945) and "Detour" (1945). "The Lady Confesses", with a few red herrings, at least has your attention right to the end.Just before her marriage to Larry Craig (Hugh Beaumont), Vicki (Mary Beth Hughes) receives a visit from Larry's first wife - she hasn't been heard of for 7 years and was presumed dead. She is very much alive but not for long. Larry already knows she is in town but when they call around to see her (as you would at 2 in the morning) it is to discover that she has been killed. Of course everyone (including the police) is surprised and none more so than Larry, but he has a airtight alibi - he was completely "lit up" (drunk) according to the bartender and slept for a few hours on singer Lucille Compton's (Claudia Drake) couch - or did he??? Vicki decides to do some investigating on her own, starting at the questionable 711 Club where she gets a job as a table photographer (even though she forgets to take the lens cap off the camera - silly girl!!!) All fingers point to Lucky Brandon (an actor who is a dead ringer for Billy DeWolfe), the suspicious night club owner - he is very secretive about his movements and is the only person not to vouch for Larry. Larry himself is odd - he is moody and surly and often rings Vicki up at strange hours. Lucille is just about to tell Vicki something about Larry - when the police chief breaks up their conversation. Lucille appeared very tense.Hugh Beaumont, before his "Leave it to Beaver" TV show and even before he was Michael Shayne in a group of PRC released films from the end of the 40s had a prominent part in Val Lewton's "The Seventh Victim" (1943). Surprisingly, it was then back to uncredited bits before he scored the leading role in "The Lady Confesses". I can't find any information about Claudia Drake but the couple of films I have seen her in she played singers and mostly sang more than she acted - so I guess she must have started out as a band singer. She is quite good and really deserved a better go in films.

dbborroughs Woman returns after seven years with the intention of spoiling the impending remarriage of her husband. Warning the girl that the man she loves is a louse she disappears into the night, only to turn up dead not long after. Who could have done it? The fiancé, the husband, the night club singer or the owner of the club? Breezy hour long story of murder and mystery as one murder becomes more and it looks like no one could have done it although everyone wanted to. Good but not great this is actually more compelling then you think it should be, I put it on figuring it would lull me to sleep instead I ended up up watching it to the end. Intriguing in that we get to see Hugh Beaumont before he was the Beaver's dad, in a role somewhat less squeaky clean. Its not high art but it is worth taking a gander at should you stumble upon it.

David (Handlinghandel) This film makes "Detour," also released through PRC, look like "How Green Was My Valley." Yes, it's THAT cheap and phony looking. Yet, the performers are good and the plot has cool twists.I loved seeing Mary Beth Hughes as a lead. She got third or fifth billing in so many better known noirs. At PRC, she was the leading lady she could be.Hugh Beaumont is fine as her boyfriend with a past. The scenes of him and other men in silhouette are right off the cover of a dime novel.The ladies in the movie are all fine. We have Ms. Hughes. Claudia Drake is very effective as a café singer. Much of the action takes place in the joint where she sings: the Club 711. And Barbara Slater is appropriately nasty as Beaumont's wife. She's been gone, thought dead, for seven years and has just reappeared as the story begins.I have to say, the title makes no sense. No spoilers but I'm not sure why it was chosen. (I see that one of its working titles was "Ladies of the Night." That would have been too controversial. It also would have been too obvious, too blatant. And, again, it would not have really fit.) Also, the print I saw was terrible. I'd have rated it higher had it been restored. And I hope it will be!