William Gargan and Carole Landis star in Behind Green Lights, a police drama set in one night in the police station. Gargan is Lt. Sam Carson, the head officer of the night shift and Landis is Janet Bradley, the prime suspect in the murder of a shady Private Eye who is blackmailing her. Both of their performances are excellent.
Several of the supporting cast put in a good performance as well, such as Roy Roberts as Max Calvert, the owner of a newspaper who tries to influence Lt. Carson into railroading Janet Bradley into a murder conviction, whether she's actually guilty or not. Newspaper politics and corruption is well depicted here.
The only part of this movie that lacks is when they spend too much time with the newspaper reporters who work out of an office at the police station. Too often they delve into a little too much slap stick and corny behavior. That and the character of Flossie, the "nutty woman who sells flowers" who becomes a somewhat too frequent presence in the later part of the movie, although she does help the Lt. figure out who the killer is. That and they over did her use of the phrase "A dollar six bits", which got to be a little annoying. All of this happens in the last half of the film. If you keep in mind when the film was made it's easier to simply look past these few distractions.
Never the less, this is a fun, albeit short (64 minutes) movie. It was entertaining to watch Gargan and Landis, who normally got supporting roles in a lot of the movies they're in, get to be the leads. Oh, and you'll never figure out who actually killed the Private Eye until the end! Good overall, worth 7 stars for the excellent and entertaining story.
Several of the supporting cast put in a good performance as well, such as Roy Roberts as Max Calvert, the owner of a newspaper who tries to influence Lt. Carson into railroading Janet Bradley into a murder conviction, whether she's actually guilty or not. Newspaper politics and corruption is well depicted here.
The only part of this movie that lacks is when they spend too much time with the newspaper reporters who work out of an office at the police station. Too often they delve into a little too much slap stick and corny behavior. That and the character of Flossie, the "nutty woman who sells flowers" who becomes a somewhat too frequent presence in the later part of the movie, although she does help the Lt. figure out who the killer is. That and they over did her use of the phrase "A dollar six bits", which got to be a little annoying. All of this happens in the last half of the film. If you keep in mind when the film was made it's easier to simply look past these few distractions.
Never the less, this is a fun, albeit short (64 minutes) movie. It was entertaining to watch Gargan and Landis, who normally got supporting roles in a lot of the movies they're in, get to be the leads. Oh, and you'll never figure out who actually killed the Private Eye until the end! Good overall, worth 7 stars for the excellent and entertaining story.