Dressed to Kill

I sat bolt upright at the end of this movie because it looked as if there was a serious error in the credits. No, I thought, I must be wrong. But I'm not. The movie's streaming on Netflix, so you can see for yourself: 20th Century Fox reversed the names of the two African-American actors who provide some of the brightest points in this bright little movie.

They often entertained as a team, and in this movie Mantan Moreland and Ben Carter play two theater janitors who first appear doing a sweet backstage dance sequence with their brooms while Mary Beth Hughes (too little of her in this movie) sings on-stage but off-screen. I loved it that the filmmakers ignored the girl singer for the greater talents of these two hoofers. Their characters are called Rusty and Sam, with the bigger part going to Rusty, who is played by Moreland, the more famous of the two. But in the final credits, the names are reversed with the roles, crediting Ben Carter as Rusty. Inexcusable. I doubt it ever happened to the Marx Brothers, or even the Ritz Brothers.

Yet IMDb has it right in its Cast and Crew listing. I find that impressive.

The movie's impressive, too-- a B movie with a ridiculously complicated plot with a lot of theatrics, quick-witted dialog, and sure-footed performances by Lloyd Nolan, William Demarest, Henry Daniell, Moreland and Carter, and Mary Beth Hughes-- of whom, as I said, there was far too little screen time. Far too little of her in movies in general, in fact.