VeteranLight I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Pluskylang Great Film overall

Bereamic Awesome Movie

Cassandra Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Robert J. Maxwell Michael O'Shea becomes an undercover agent in an attempt to discover who's behind the self-evident corruption of the parole board. The printed prologue informs us that this is a serious social problem, that the streets are filled with "repeaters", and that there is one peeking through your window right now, waiting for his chance to strangle you and pillage your household.O'Shea finds out that the friends of a recently sprung parolee hang out in the Pastime Club, "a combination night club and cheap café." Whatever happened to cheap night clubs anyway? The old movies are full of them but the only ones left seem to be Birdland and the Las Vegas lounge acts. It's a terrible loss to the community.The plot is a little too complicated to spell out. Some of the mob behind the corruption are not as bad as some of the others, although at the end, O'Shea's identity is discovered and they give him a real working over. No problem though. We see him swathed in bandages, dictating the story from a hospital bed, his recovery assured by the ministrations of the ever-popular Bess Flowers as Nurse Mary.The movie is one hundred percent routine. It wouldn't really be helpful to describe more of the contorted plot. Besides, I haven't the time. There's a recidivist pervert at the door and it sounds as if he's urgent.

MartinHafer This B-movie is about a scam where the parole board is releasing undeserving candidates. An investigator decides to go undercover in order to root out who is on the take as well as their confederates. So, he poses as a real guy who had just recently escaped from prison—which is great unless any of the crooks knew this escapee. You figure this plan does not go perfectly, as the story is a flashback and periodically the film returns to the present—and shows the undercover man in a hospital bed—covered in bandages. This sure makes for an anti-climactic film, as you know the guy will survive—no matter how dangerous his position is late in the film.Despite having a cast completely made up of unknowns and a very low budget, the film works reasonably well. As I said above, the suspense could have been a lot better had the story not been told as a flashback by the agent, but it's competently made, reasonably engaging and, at times, pretty exciting. While not a great film, it's a pretty good time-passer.

William James Harper There's nothing like a movie made in the 40s. There is a simplicity of perspective that is utterly refreshing when compared to the rubbish that passes for entertainment these days. The entire cast is excellent, the plot clean and easy to understand. Well before the half point of the film, I was rooting for the undercover agent to succeed. I like the fact that the crooks were't so smarmy as to be stereotypes. They were rotters but somehow still seemed human. The end of the film has a strong build up. I really enjoyed this forgotten movie. I wonder how many other B movies are so good. Working my way down IMDb list of available films online, I may soon know.

classicsoncall This was an interesting little mystery/crime thriller dealing with criminal conspiracy in the parole system. Plotted rather well with a wide cast of characters, you really had to concentrate on the players to keep it all in focus. Undercover detective Richard Hendricks (Michael O'Shea) has three names in the story, recruited by the Governor and State Attorney General to try and find out how a string of recent paroles occurred to put nasty gangsters back on the street. It was rather comical to see Hendricks in an opening scene in a hospital bed with his face crudely bandaged up with gobs of tape. He proceeds to tell his story in somewhat of a flashback style, and it works pretty well as he comes in contact with various mobsters and henchmen in the employ of Jojo Dumont (Evelyn Ankers), owner of the Pastime Club. She's in league with her shady lawyer boyfriend, Barney Rodescu (Turhan Bey), who has contacts on the parole board that line their pockets as he calls the shots.I would like to have seen a darker and seedier atmosphere for the picture given the subject matter. Everything seemed to take place in the bright light of day, and I didn't get the impression that the Pastime Club was the sleazy gin mill and cheap cafe that it was described to be. Glenda Palmer (Virginia Lee) had a rather nice and spacious apartment on waitress wages, and though you could say she was bankrolled by her convict husband Harry (Charles Bradstreet), he was still doing time when the story opened. Too bad Harry tried to do an end run around Jojo; he seemed like a decent enough guy otherwise, for a criminal.The best part about the picture is the way Hendricks infiltrates himself into the set up with Charley Newton (Paul Bryar) and the boys. You can tell some thought was put into the story when you have Hendricks leaving clues he was a hood back in his hotel room. A lot of stories of the era would have glossed over small details like that and would have assumed the viewer would take it for granted. It was touches like that, that place the film a notch above similar flicks of the era, like 1947's "Big Town After Dark". There was enough credibility in the characters and situations to play out effectively, and you didn't have to scratch your head over a bunch of goofy stuff that a lot of these programmers came up with.