Classic Films in Focus: MYSTERY STREET (1950)

The visual and narrative style of Mystery Street (1950) will be familiar to anyone who watches modern police procedurals on television, especially shows that feature a lot of forensic analysis of corpses and crime scenes. Those looking for the intensity of top-shelf crime pictures will probably be disappointed, even with John Sturges in the director's chair and Ricardo Montalbán taking the lead as the police detective trying to catch a young woman's murderer. Still, the picture has its charms, especially for fans of the great Elsa Lanchester and those who really appreciate the piece-by-piece and bone-by-bone puzzle solving of forensic crime shows like Bones and the many iterations of CSI. 

Ricardo Montalbán stars as Lieutenant Peter Moralas, a police detective working in Cape Cod and Boston to solve the murder of Vivian Heldon (Jan Sterling), whose skeletal remains are found months after she is last seen with a very drunk Henry Shanway (Marshall Thompson). With only bones to examine at first, Moralas turns to Dr. McAdoo (Bruce Bennett), a Harvard forensics expert, for help in identifying the body and building a case to find her killer. Henry's wife, Grace (Sally Forrest), persists in believing in his innocence even as evidence against Henry mounts, while Vivian's shady landlady, Mrs. Smerrling (Elsa Lanchester), tries to blackmail the real killer, a wealthy family man named James Harkley (Edmon Ryan).

It's not a spoiler to reveal the identity of the murderer because the movie does that in its opening, which shows us the events of the night Vivian dies and makes it clear that Henry is innocent. Thus, the audience always knows what Moralas and his associates are trying to learn, and the suspense lies in our concern that the cops will pin the crime on the wrong man. We have the completed puzzle in front of us, while the detectives have to find and try to fit each piece, and we can see how they get it wrong as they rush to convict the most obvious suspect. While Moralas tears apart the lives of the young couple, who are still grieving the child Grace miscarried on the night of the murder, we watch the crafty Mrs. Smerrling put the truth together like a blackmailing Miss Marple, but she has no interest in sharing her information with the cops. The picture lavishes attention on the amazing potential of forensic science but doesn't seem especially interested in making Moralas and the police in general look good, even at the end when Moralas weakly attempts to apologize to Grace for everything he has forced her and her husband to endure. 

The performances are a mixed bag, as well, but a few standouts are worth noting. Montalbán does a fine job with his character, although Moralas is not as developed and interesting as one would like for a protagonist. He has a few scenes that address his obvious identity as an outsider, and it's nice to see him push back against Harkley's prejudice and preening sense of superiority. Harkley himself is not a very interesting villain, just another rich white guy who thinks the world revolves around him, and Henry Shanway and Dr. McAdoo are both more plot devices than people. The female characters possess all the nuance and complexity the men lack, starting with Jan Sterling as the doomed Vivian, who isn't perfect but still deserves a lot better than her fate. Sally Forrest channels the helpless rage and grief of Grace Shanway beautifully, while Betsy Blair makes the most of her handful of scenes as Vivian's housemate, Jackie. Elsa Lanchester gives the scene-stealing performance of the picture as the greedy landlady, always assessing every situation and conversation for an opportunity to profit off from it, even though she underestimates her own peril in trying to blackmail a man she knows to be a murderer. 

John Sturges made several undisputed classics, including Bad Day at Black Rock (1955), Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), The Magnificent Seven (1960), and The Great Escape (1963). Mystery Street came on the heels of a very busy 1949 for Ricardo Montalbán, when he appeared in the Esther Williams musical romance, Neptune's Daughter, the gritty noir, Border Incident, and the war picture, Battleground, which also stars Marshall Thompson. See more of Jan Sterling in Johnny Belinda (1948), Ace in the Hole (1951), and The High and the Mighty (1954), the last of which earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Catch Sally Forrest in a starring role in Ida Lupino's Not Wanted (1949), and don't miss Betsy Blair's Oscar-nominated performance in Marty (1955). For more of the brilliant Elsa Lanchester, see The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), Ladies in Retirement (1941), Witness for the Prosecution (1957), and Bell, Book and Candle (1959). She's iconic in The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), of course, but it doesn't give her nearly enough to do. If you want to see Lanchester as a proper detective, she plays a parody of Miss Marple in the star-studded mystery comedy, Murder by Death (1976).