"The Argyle Secrets" is a poverty-row noir made in 1948 for Eronel Productions (heard of them? I sure haven't) that follows newsman Harry Mitchell (William Gargan), hot on the trail of the mysterious Argyle album, a package of incriminating evidence of wartime collaboration and betrayal that results early on in the death of an older, famous reporter whose fragmentary whispers and one photo-stat of the cover of the album lead Mitchell on what first seems to be a wild goose chase in search of an item that may or may not even really exist. This might seem reminiscent of The Maltese Falcon and other mcguffins, though in this case it seems that the album really does exist - though what it actually contains, we never know.
This is classic noir territory, with a femme fatale (Marjorie Lord) who is apparently playing any side of the fence she needs to, seedy European thugs and their suave boss, a fat corrupt private eye named "Panama" who speaks in courtly Southernisms, a murder pinned on our hero, who at one point outwits both police and thugs to find himself in the cheap apartment of old neighbors of his, a Jewish family whose rather dimwitted older son turns out to be a cop himself, coming home with the newspaper that has Mitchell's face splashed on its front page. This scene is a bit of calmness and comedy in the middle of a very short (64 minute) and frantic film, and it exudes a warmth and loving attitude towards the American dream of immigrants - the bright side of the postwar dream contrasting with the dark side of ex-Nazis and collaborators trying to find refuge or start up new criminal activities here.
Though the film is overall plenty cynical and as downbeat as plenty of other noirs, the central scene I mentioned shows something of director Cy Endfield's passion for his country, and his belief in the American dream and the Good War, which makes it all the more sad that soon he would have to flee for being "un-American", never to work in Hollywood again.
This is classic noir territory, with a femme fatale (Marjorie Lord) who is apparently playing any side of the fence she needs to, seedy European thugs and their suave boss, a fat corrupt private eye named "Panama" who speaks in courtly Southernisms, a murder pinned on our hero, who at one point outwits both police and thugs to find himself in the cheap apartment of old neighbors of his, a Jewish family whose rather dimwitted older son turns out to be a cop himself, coming home with the newspaper that has Mitchell's face splashed on its front page. This scene is a bit of calmness and comedy in the middle of a very short (64 minute) and frantic film, and it exudes a warmth and loving attitude towards the American dream of immigrants - the bright side of the postwar dream contrasting with the dark side of ex-Nazis and collaborators trying to find refuge or start up new criminal activities here.
Though the film is overall plenty cynical and as downbeat as plenty of other noirs, the central scene I mentioned shows something of director Cy Endfield's passion for his country, and his belief in the American dream and the Good War, which makes it all the more sad that soon he would have to flee for being "un-American", never to work in Hollywood again.