User Reviews

Like Jessica Fletcher of "Murder She Wrote", the team of Frankie Darro and Mantan Moreland seem to find murder wherever they go. In at least three of their films, they've all of a sudden stumbled across a dead body (or a dead body stumbled over them), and like Angela Lansbury, they defy the law to try and solve the murders themselves. Here, the dead body (and another one later on) pop up in the exclusive apartment building they work in, and the two pals come across all sorts of intrigue involving a gambling ring and the seedy characters involved in the search for some missing cash.

While the humor quotient of the script isn't as obvious as their other pairings, it isn't because the script is trying to be funny and fails. It simply is that the film is written as more as a mystery with subtle comic undertones, so those expecting a wise-cracking farce with a murder background might be slightly disappointed. However, this also means that there's less obvious racial slurs towards Moreland, and in fact, he is presented as less cowardly than normal, certainly less than other black comic actors of the time. The camaraderie between Moreland and Darro is very apparent, and they seem to be having fun working together. Kay Sutton is a pretty heroine, and an actress named Vickie Lester (no relation to the Janet Gaynor/Judy Garland actress character from "A Star is Born") is an obvious gangster's moll. Harmless fun at just under an hour, it's formula fluff, but just once, I'm hoping for a Darro/Moreland pairing that doesn't involve murder and has something a little more original.