Mystery Street (1950)

(On Cable TV, May 2021) I’m always up for a good procedural, and Mystery Street certainly obliges — set in Boston (and filmed there — a rarity at the time), it’s about the murder of a young woman where we, the audience, hold all the facts from the get-go — the suspense is in seeing the police investigator (played by a young Ricardo Montalban!) piece together the clues and use the forensic methods of the time to advance in his investigation. The straightforward script and direction actually work well in letting us take in the period atmosphere: Being close to the facts and unwilling to indulge in flights of stylistic fancy makes Mystery Street a bit of an outlier in a period best known for stylish noirs. The unspectacular nature of the narrative doesn’t stop the thrills, and it allows the atmosphere of the time to be credibly portrayed. Most viewers will latch on the forensic science sequences as the film’s most noteworthy moments, anticipating the CSI series of decades later in combining science and criminal detection. The result is a rather nice B-grade thriller — not quite worth crowing about, but amply rewarding for audiences catching this with no great expectations.