A private detective and his assistant are hired to find a missing husband by the detective's former girlfriend who dumped him. The case is quickly complicated by a sexy brunette, a missing bank executive, a castle in the desert, and a dead body with its "head blown off" but identified as the husband.
Practical Effects
That 'castle in the desert' is gloriously unconvincing cardboard.
Acting
Richard Arlen's sneer could curdle milk at fifty paces.
Director
Walter Colmes
Richard Arlen
Simon Lash
Veda Ann Borg
Joyce Kimball Bonniwell
Tom Dugan
Eddie Slocum
Marjorie Manners
Evelyn Price
Archie Twitchell
[as Michael Brandon] Sheriff Rucker
Lee Phelps
Lt. Hayden
Earle Hodgins
Marshal Jeff Bailey
Francis Ford
King Connors
Herbert Rawlinson
Vincent Springer
Edward Earle
Jim Bonniwell
Robert McKenzie
Barstow Gas Station Attendant
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Richard Arlen was a silent film star clinging to relevance; this Poverty Row quickie was shot in under a week for Republic Pictures' bottom shelf.
The 'castle in the desert' trope flourished in 1940s noir—foreign architecture planted in American wastelands symbolized corruption hiding in plain sight, or just cheap exoticism for B-pictures.
US
