Manhandled

Kitten and Chaos.

Manhandled is directed by Lewis R. Foster and adapted to screenplay by Foster and Whitman Chambers from the novel "The Man Who Stole A Dream" written by L. S. Goldsmith. It stars Dorothy Lamour, Dan Duryea, Sterling Hayden, Irene Hervey and Art Smith. Music is by Darrell Calker and cinematography by Ernest Laszlo.

I'm going to kill you, Ruth. I have to.

Manhandled is one of those late 40s crime mysteries that feature film noir legends and film noir narrative tints, thus why it finds itself under the film noir banner. This is more a curse than a blessing. For it's not a particularly great film, where the presence of Hayden and Duryea - and Laszlo on photography - just about keeps things bubbling away to make it wat...

Dorothy Lamour is good in this otherwise rather drab crime noir. The plot is overly complex, bordering on the convoluted - you could almost get dizzy trying to follow the plot. Which is (briefly): Lamour plays "Merle"; the PA to a psychiatrist. She casually discusses his private cases with her on/off amour (Dan Duryea) and one such story involved a client's (Alan Napier) dreams that he kills his wealthy wife. Well, yep - you've guessed - the wife is duly murdered and an investigation ensues. Duryea, as the oily, smart-mouthed PI and Sterling Hayden as the investigating insurance man do fine, and Art Smith makes for quite a decent cop, but Lewis Foster let's this ramble on and no amount of tense violin music can compensate for what is just a lacklustre murder thriller.