ThiefHott Too much of everything

ChanBot i must have seen a different film!!

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

mark.waltz If movie plots are like train wrecks, this one is up there with the crash in "The Greatest Show on Earth". Every element of this film noir rings a bell of falsehood. In some films, you might be tempted to walk out of the theater or simply press stop on your VCR or DVD player. In the case of "The Inner Circle", you'll stick with it just to see how far down the road of absurdity it will go.The plot deals with a private investigator (Warren Douglas) in need of an assistant who gets one that instant when all of a sudden a mysterious blonde (Adele Mara) walks in and announces that he's just hired her. Then, she takes a mysterious phone call from a "client" whom Douglas agrees to meet which results him stumbling onto a dead body and the veiled brunette client proceeds to conk him over the head. You won't be surprised to find out who she really is, and then the ridiculousness continues at a break-neck speed with a line-up of other suspects and Mara getting Douglas off for a murder he didn't commit on a self-defense charge.Cantankerous William Frawley plays a police investigator who trails both Mara and Douglas and always shows up at the most inconveniently obvious times. There's a grizzled old handyman (Will Wright) and housekeeper (Dorothy Adams) who worked for the victim (a radio columnist), as well as a nightclub singer (Virginia Christine, best known for the Folgers commercials years later) and the nightclub owner (veteran actor Ricardo Cortez). To top off the less than one hour of absurd story-telling, Douglas has Mara named as the killer and re-enacts the crime on a live radio show with everybody present with scripts in hand for the final denouncement.In spite of all the downright atrocious plot twists and developments, you might find yourself engrossed with ironic laughter at it all. Like the clown that slips on a banana peel and slides across the stage floor before landing with a thud, this movie slides through its six reels, landing on the floor, and leaving a rotten egg behind.

dbborroughs Johnny Strange of Action Incorporated is interrupted by a beautiful woman while placing an ad for a secretary. She hangs up on the newspaper and takes the job. When a mysterious call comes in not long after Johnny finds himself knocked out and framed for the murder of a sleazy radio show announcer (ala Walter Winchell). Johnny must now try to solve the case before he ends up behind bars for the murder.This is a fast moving mystery thriller with a smart ass attitude and a never ending stream of one liners. Running around 55 minutes this movie starts from the first frame and zips right on by to the last. To be certain the film shows signs of a reduced budget, there are only so many sets, but the film over comes the limitations by being very witty. The cast which includes William Frawley as a cop, Ricardo Cortez as suspect William Douglas as Johnny and first (?) billed Adele Mara as the secretary is first rate. The rest of the cast is filled out with many familiar faces and they all come together to make what could have and should have been a less than sterling little mystery into something that is actually quite enjoyable.Definitely worth a bowl of popcorn and a soda (especially on a multi feature evening on a rainy night)

David (Handlinghandel) This is a romantic, comic mystery. Warner Brothers turned out a lot of these in the thirties and early forties. Jane Wyman was often the girl.Here, we have several girls. We have the secretary who appears out of nowhere. She works for a private investigator, Johnny Strange. (Was there another noun that could be added to Johnny to make a name for a movie character in that decade?) Then there's the mysterious veiled woman who calls for his services. Then there's Virginia Christine (Mrs. Olson of the coffee commercials a few decades later.) She sings in a club. Then there's ... OK: No more about the plot.That excellent and durable actor Ricardo Cortez somehow found himself at Republic. He turns in a variation on his usual cynical, suave performance. It's not his worst, either. But he is fourth-billed, below William Frawley, who plays a cop. And Adele Mara gets top billing.It's fun to watch. It could very easily have been better but it isn't terrible.

Hitchcoc The story begins with a pretty blonde lady barging into a PI's office and taking a job before he has a chance to say anything. From this point on the guy should have been suspicious of her motives. But barging in is what she does and that's it. He becomes the victim of a frame-up and goes along with everything. His buddy Fred Mertz (I mean William Frawley) probably would have just looked the other way if he had been asked, but he gets steered away. The whole thing is so lightweight as to be inconsequential. There is a guy killed, but he was an extortionist jerk anyway and got what was coming to him. Everyone plays around, despite the potential seriousness that would exist under real circumstances. The characters mug and fool around and we just know that no-one is going to hang for their crimes. It has a nice quality to it but no real substance.