WHAT PRICE CRIME?

(director: Albert Herman; screenwriter: Al Martin/story by Al Martin; cinematographer: Harry Forbes; editor: S. Roy Luby; cast: Charles Starrett (Allen Grey), Noel Madison (Douglas Worthington), Virginia Cherrill (Sondra Worthington), Charles Delaney (Jim Armstrong), Jack Mulhall (Det. Hoppy Hopkins), Nina Guilbert (Mother Worthington), John H. Elliott (Chief J. Radcliff), Al Baffert (Battling Brennan), Henry Roquemore (Pete Crenshaw); Runtime: 61; MPAA Rating: NR; producer: Max Alexander; Alpha; 1935)

“A predictable poverty-row routine potboiler.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

A predictable poverty-row routine potboiler directed by Albert Herman (“Renfrew on the Great White Trail”/”The Dawn Express”/ “Delinquent Daughters”) and written by Al Martin. It stagnates from the unconvincing acting, poorly conceived story, and is unintentionally funny as it shows how inept the coppers are in their undercover operation.

After a series of government warehouses were robbed of their weapons, hot-shot G-man Allen Grey (Charles Starrett, known for his B-film westerns) is assigned to the case and works with Police Chief Radcliff. The only clue is that the watchman killed one of the robbers and a matchbook to the high-class Chateau Madrid nightclub was found on him. Under the suggestion of detective Crenshaw, Grey poses as a prize-fighter. The hope is that his fighting ability will come to the attention of the main suspect, Douglas Worthington (Noel Madison), the nightclub owner and fight manager, and thereby Grey can get a contract from him and work undercover to get the goods on Worthington’s operation. By coincidence, Grey and Worthington’s pretty innocent sister Sondra (Virginia Cherrill, played the blind girl in Chaplin’s City Lights) met before on the cute over a traffic accident and their meeting again gives them the chance to get romantically involved while he brings down her brother’s lucrative smuggling firearms organization.

REVIEWED ON 5/11/2007 GRADE: C