THE ARGYLE SECRETS (1948)

Washington newspaper columnist Allen Pierce has been working on a promised post-war exposé involving some important people. His primary document is a huge book he calls the Argyle Album. When he winds up in a hospital with heart troubles, he calls just one journalist in, Harry Mitchell (William Gargan), and in obvious distress, gives him a photocopy of the front cover of the book and promptly dies. Harry leaves to call his story in and lets his photographer Pinky into the room to take a picture. When Harry returns, the doctor discovers that Pierce is indeed dead, but he has a scalpel stuck in his heart. Then Pinky is found dead behind a screen. Realizing he is now a murder suspect, Harry goes on the run and tries to find the book. At Pierce's hotel room, he finds Pierce's secretary and promptly knocks her out so he can ransack the room. But soon a rotund Southern gentleman in a Panama hat (Jack Reitzen) shows up, being greasily ingratiating and threatening, looking for the Argyle Album himself. Harry disarms him, but later is visited by Marla (Marjorie Lord) who is trying to find the book for her boss, the German-accented Mr. Winter (John Banner). Harry finds out that the book contains information on some big American industrialists who collaborated with the Nazis during the war. He wants to find the book to finish Pierce’s exposé, but others want the book for themselves.

As a classic movie buff, as soon as Panama appeared, I was reminded of Sydney Greenstreet (large, mannered but menacing, photographed from below). Then Marla and Winter showed up as rivals for the book and I realized this was inspired by The Maltese Falcon. Gargan is Bogart, Reitzen is Greenstreet, Lord is Mary Astor (she even calls herself "utterly rotten," echoing a line of Astor's), Ralph Byrd, who played Dick Tracy in the movies, is a cop on Harry's trail like Barton MacLane is on Bogart, and the Argyle Album is the Falcon. In this case, only some of the bad guys want money; the others want to keep their Nazi secrets out of the newspapers. There’s more violence here than in Falcon, involving not just guns and fists but an acetylene torch. Robert Kellard, a favored B-actor of mine, most notable in a Fu Manchu serial, has what amounts to a cameo in a cute scene involving a cop, his mom, and a kid practicing on his violin. Gargan, a B-actor whom I usually like, is a bit colorless here, as are most of the supporting players, but maybe I'm being unfair because my reaction is colored by my love of The Maltese Falcon. I liked seeing Marjorie Lord (pictured with Gargan) from the Danny Thomas TV show in a role besides dutiful wife, and another sitcom wife, Barbara Billingsly (Leave It to Beaver) has a small role as Pierce's secretary, the one who gets punched in the face. The movie’s B-atmosphere is limiting but I enjoyed this overall. [TCM]