Usual great camera work helps keep viewers involved through lengthy talk sessions. Notice the many revealing close-ups. That way, personality shares spotlight with the talk. Also, the setup in the murdered woman's fleabag room is especially eye-catching with her bound corpse in the foreground and the cops in the back. Plot-wise, an ex-vaudevillian is found murdered, the contents of an old trunk scattered about and no suspects. Friday and Smith are assigned to find the culprit and maybe unravel the trunk mystery.
I may be wrong, but seems the script flirts with whether the victim's just a skid-row denizen or maybe a hooker murdered by a John. Of course, hookers couldn't be so portrayed in those days, so writers had to skirt the edges, so to speak. Among an accomplished cast, look for period toughie James Anderson as one of the suspects, along with Attack of the Crab Monsters' Richard Garland. Anyway, it's the usual strong human interest from Webb and Co. that really is kind of sad as reviewer Hafer points out.
I may be wrong, but seems the script flirts with whether the victim's just a skid-row denizen or maybe a hooker murdered by a John. Of course, hookers couldn't be so portrayed in those days, so writers had to skirt the edges, so to speak. Among an accomplished cast, look for period toughie James Anderson as one of the suspects, along with Attack of the Crab Monsters' Richard Garland. Anyway, it's the usual strong human interest from Webb and Co. that really is kind of sad as reviewer Hafer points out.