Sidney James and John Slater bring Tony Wright to Frederick Valk. Here's the next boxing champeen! Valk have been out of fight promotion since he married taxi dancer Barbara Payton, but he likes Wright's form, and with the acquiescence of Miss Payton, he takes on the three of them. Of course the boxer and the woman are going to wind up having sex and murdering Valk, who's doing a great Akim Tamiroff impression. It's just that it would be nice if the lovers were capable of acting, or the lines they speak weren't so terrible.
Wright is merely bad, but Miss Payton is a new kind of awful as she visibly forces her face to show emotions she doesn't feel. The two very blond actors were clearly intended to suggest Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake, but aside from the near hair parting, Wright sounds confused by every word he utters, and Miss Payton seems to be zombified in her motions.
Without these two, it might have been a mediocre boxing noir. With them, it's a ridiculous bore, with snippets from half a dozen more distinguished efforts.
Wright is merely bad, but Miss Payton is a new kind of awful as she visibly forces her face to show emotions she doesn't feel. The two very blond actors were clearly intended to suggest Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake, but aside from the near hair parting, Wright sounds confused by every word he utters, and Miss Payton seems to be zombified in her motions.
Without these two, it might have been a mediocre boxing noir. With them, it's a ridiculous bore, with snippets from half a dozen more distinguished efforts.