Tonight's Movie: Mystery Street (1950) - A Warner Archive Blu-ray Review

The excellent film noir/police procedural MYSTERY STREET (1950) has just been released on Blu-ray by the Warner Archive Collection.

I first reviewed the movie here back in 2008, calling my first viewing "a wonderful surprise."

While the movie may no longer be a surprise after all these years, it's still quite wonderful, a compelling 93 minutes with all of the filmmakers at the top of their games.

A Boston "B" girl named Vivian (Jan Sterling), who's clearly "in trouble," disappears from a bar late one night...months later a bird watcher finds bones on Cape Cod which are eventually identified as the missing woman.

Ricardo Montalban plays police detective Peter Moralas, who works on the case with Detective Sharkey (Wally Maher). More significantly, Moralas collaborates with Dr. McAdoo (Bruce Bennett), a forensic specialist at Harvard's Department of Legal Medicine; together they reconstruct not only the victim's identity but that she was pregnant and the method of the killing.

Did hapless Henry Shanway (Marshall Thompson), drunkenly grieving his wife's (Sally Forrest) miscarriage the night Vivian disappeared, commit murder? Or was it someone else?

Vivian's former landlady (Elsa Lanchester) and friend (Betsy Blair) may hold clues...

This is one of a couple early police procedurals produced at MGM; MYSTERY STREET was preceded several years earlier by KID GLOVE KILLER (1942), the first feature film directed by Fred Zinnemann. Both are highly entertaining looks at the state of forensic medicine in the '40s. MYSTERY STREET had the bigger budget of the two films, allowing for extensive location shooting in the Boston area.

Montalban is wonderful, making the viewer wish he'd had similar roles or even a mystery series teamed with Bennett. (A side note: In my prior review I spelled his character's name the way it sounds, Morales, but the film actually has it as Moralas. Glenn Erickson noted issues with the spelling at the end of his own review.) Bennett is likewise pitch perfect as the scientist on the case.

Since first seeing the film I've come to appreciate many more cast members; for instance, in 2008 I knew little about actress-dancer Sally Forrest. Since then I've seen her in several movies, including a trio of good films directed by Ida Lupino. Incidentally, the centennial of Forrest's birth was a few days ago, on May 28th.

Forrest does well in an emotional role, especially in a scene where she's going over receipts from her pregnancy. It's an interesting note that a pair of pregnancies with very different tragic endings are a theme underpinning the film's mystery.

This is one of a couple key roles played by Lanchester in noir films of the era, another being THE BIG CLOCK (1948). In each film she plays two very different characters -- one good, one bad -- yet in each case she provides some amusing comic relief.

Betsy Blair (the offscreen Mrs. Gene Kelly in that era) registers well as a spunky waitress who, in a nice bit of background, has knowledge of guns thanks to having once dated an MP.

In the years since my first viewing I've also come to appreciate familiar character faces such as John Maxwell and Robert Foulk, who play detectives. It was great to recognize them here; their roles are small, yet they add a marvelous touch of "realness" to the background at Moralas's office, as well as the handball court where he works out.

MYSTERY STREET came fairly early in the career of director John Sturges, though he'd directed a few feature films previously, including THE SIGN OF THE RAM (1948) and THE WALKING HILLS (1949). The film's mood and pacing are just right. The film was written by Sydney Boehm and future director Richard Brooks, based on a story by Leonard Spigelgass.

One of the film's key elements is the beautiful cinematography of the great John Alton, much of it done on location in Boston. As is always the case with Alton's films, the movie provides remarkable visuals.

The gleaming black and white Blu-ray print is from a new 1080p HD master from 4K scans of the "best surviving preservation elements."  It's an outstanding print.

Extras consist of the trailer; a commentary track, originally recorded for a 2007 DVD release, by Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward; a brief featurette on the film, MURDER AT HARVARD (2007); and a pair of MGM's Tom and Jerry cartoons, LITTLE QUACKER (1950) and TOM AND JERRY IN THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL (1950).

In 2008 I wrote "This is one of those fine little movies you might never have heard of which is out there just waiting to be discovered." I hope more viewers will discover -- or rediscover -- it thanks to this Blu-ray release, which is highly recommended.

Thanks to the Warner Archive for providing a review copy of this Blu-ray. Warner Archive Blu-rays may be ordered from Movie Zyng, Amazon, and other online retailers.

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