Mary Ryan, Detective

This is an enjoyable piece. Once you acknowledge and accept that you have opted to watch a proverbial "B" film, without any great expectations of star stuff and lustre, you settle down to an entertaining sixty-seven minutes without searching for any of the classic touches that underpin crime films of this watershed period in the history of cinema.

The action, which is framed around a very, clever, ingenuous, plotline develops logically and coherently without any complicated twists and turns that normally tease the brain. You are carried along freely and easily with the drift and flow of the current. It is, in the final analysis, a well written tale that is as honest and as believable as they come. You are left, at the end, meditating on pertinent social issues such as child rearing and parenting, police methods and the ugly underbelly of smooth criminal masterminds operating beneath the façade of respectability.

It is a pleasure, for a change, to encounter a crime caper minus the incessant sound of gunfire, tiresome car chases and hackneyed beat jargon. We are exposed, instead, to a detailed step-by-step foray into the carefully worked out and well-executed modus operandi of the criminal mind. Marsha Hunt does justice to her titular role as protagonist as do the others in the supporting cast. I thought that June Vincent could have been given more screen time (she was brilliant in "Dark Angel" three years earlier) but I suppose time and budgetary constraints ruled that out.

Ultimately, the limited sixty-seven minutes are well managed as there are many dark shadows and noirish nuances to be seen. These are lit also up with some genuine moments of humour particularly towards the end.

An enjoyable treat. I was weaned on the great blockbusters of the 40s and 50s. This offering has taught me to respect the so- called humble "B Grader".