The least you can say about the 6 Hildegarde Withers films is that they tried to give us a different setting for murder in each episode; the New York Aquarium, The Continental Museum, Catalina Island, etc. In "Forty Naughty Girls", there are two extra elements: there is just one setting, a Broadway theater where the sold-out title show is being presented, and the story plays out in "real time". This is the most comedy-oriented entry in the series, with Hildegarde doing arguably more pratfalling than detecting; nonetheless, she does at least manage to solve the case herself (and it's a tough one), unlike the previous Zasu Pitts outing ("The Plot Thickens"), where Inspector Oscar Piper should take about 90% of the credit. Tom Kennedy, a "Torchy Blane" series regular at the time as dumb cop Gahagan, makes a guest appearance as....dumb cop Casey, and as usual he guarantees some good laughs ("There is the killer, and he brought his horse!"). For a B production, "Forty Naughty Girls" does a good job of "faking" a higher budget than it probably had. **1/2 out of 4.
Review of Forty Naughty Girls
