Kid Glove Killer (1942)

(On Cable TV, March 2022) Short, unassuming but very entertaining, Kid Glove Killer features Van Heflin in a rather unusual role—that of a forensic police investigator, going through crime scene evidence to uncover proof of malfeasance. Kind of a WW2-era CSI pilot, the film uses it slim 74 minutes running time to its densest extent, balancing a murder mystery, city-wide corruption, procedural details of an investigation, a romantic triangle and even the tension of having the murderer close to the investigators in many different ways. Lean and efficient, Kid Glove Killer is also quite a bit of fun—Heflin is at his most likable here as a nerdish but determined investigator, while Marsha Hunt is eye-catching as his flirtatious assistant. (Of all the outdated expressions of classic Hollywood, few get as reliable a grin from me as “Match me?”)  I quite liked it, and it pairs very well with Heflin’s quasi-contemporary and equally-concise murder mystery Grand Central Murder.