A melodrama about intrepid Assistant D.A. Franchot Tone breaking up a racist 'hate' group called 'The Crusaders'; 'Jigsaw' on paper resembles a rather bold US independent equivalent to Costa-Gavras's Oscar-winning political thriller 'Z' (1969). It also rather recalls Hitchcock's wartime anti-Nazi thriller 'Saboteur' (1942), even down to a memorably sinister cocktail party peopled with wealthy and well-connected reactionaries; plenty of the talk about racism and bigotry still sounds disturbingly topical today. Having made such a bold attack on the far right in their maiden production at the very moment that Hollywood's attention was turning full-time to The Red Menace, it's hardly surprising that the film's producers, the Danziger Brothers, relocated to Britain in 1952.
Unfortunately, even though plenty of people get shot, once the shock of the film's crusading politics wears off, the whole thing proves disappointingly diffuse and uninvolving. Don Malkames provides plenty of good noirish photography (concluding with a splendid nighttime shootout in a museum), but first-time director Fletcher Markle (whose best-known directing credit was to be the Disney adventure 'The Incredible Journey' in 1963) is too often plainly trying too hard.
A final credit at the end informs us that it "was filmed with the obvious good will of many famous stars", which explains the bewildering cameo appearances by several Hollywood liberals of the period (two of whom - John Garfield and Marsha Hunt - were later actually blacklisted); Marlene Dietrich, exits a scene set in a nightclub called - what else? - 'The Blue Angel' just as Henry Fonda walks into the same shot playing a waiter. These star cameos ironically vie for attention with a regular cast comprised almost entirely of then unknowns presumably recruited from radio and Broadway, including vivid contributions from Myron McCormick, Marc Lawrence, Doe Avedon (making a charming debut under the name 'Betty Harper), Winifred Lenihan, Walter Vaughan (Robert's father, playing the D.A.) and Robert Gist (later a TV director, including 'Star Trek').
Unfortunately, even though plenty of people get shot, once the shock of the film's crusading politics wears off, the whole thing proves disappointingly diffuse and uninvolving. Don Malkames provides plenty of good noirish photography (concluding with a splendid nighttime shootout in a museum), but first-time director Fletcher Markle (whose best-known directing credit was to be the Disney adventure 'The Incredible Journey' in 1963) is too often plainly trying too hard.
A final credit at the end informs us that it "was filmed with the obvious good will of many famous stars", which explains the bewildering cameo appearances by several Hollywood liberals of the period (two of whom - John Garfield and Marsha Hunt - were later actually blacklisted); Marlene Dietrich, exits a scene set in a nightclub called - what else? - 'The Blue Angel' just as Henry Fonda walks into the same shot playing a waiter. These star cameos ironically vie for attention with a regular cast comprised almost entirely of then unknowns presumably recruited from radio and Broadway, including vivid contributions from Myron McCormick, Marc Lawrence, Doe Avedon (making a charming debut under the name 'Betty Harper), Winifred Lenihan, Walter Vaughan (Robert's father, playing the D.A.) and Robert Gist (later a TV director, including 'Star Trek').