NO QUESTIONS ASKED (1951)

Insurance lawyer Steve Kiever (Barry Sullivan) is on the run from the cops through the nighttime city streets (film noir element #1). In a flashback (noir element #2), we see how he came to this spot. Steve is a good lawyer but not quite good enough to get the raise his fiancée Ellen (Arlene Dahl) wants to ensure the good life for them. Steve does some negotiating with his boss Manstan and with some gangsters and initiates a plan whereby the company would pay a large sum to the criminals to get insured stolen property back. The company wouldn't have to pay out an exorbitant sum to the claimants, and Steve would get a cut of the money for himself. This works and Steve buys Ellen an expensive ring, but she has already left him and married a wealthy man while on vacation. Steve keeps up his contacts and Inspector Duggan (George Murphy) thinks that Steve, though technically within the law, has triggered a crime wave. Steve starts dating Joan (Jean Hagan), a secretary at work, but when Ellen returns to town, Steve gravitates back to her (film noir element #3). While the three run into each other at a Broadway show, two women pull a big jewelry heist in the ladies room, though they wind up being men in drag (and, it's hinted, gay men). Franko, a burly crook who prides himself on how long he can stay underwater without breathing (yes, this is a 'Chekhov's gun'), has the jewels but this time, Steve may not be able to pull off his rescue job. This is a legit film noir, for the three plot elements pointed out above, and mostly because the hero is morally flawed—he is generally a good person but gets caught up in the gray area of hanging out with gangsters to enrich his bank account and may not be able to extricate himself from his mob ties. The central trio of actors are OK. Sullivan as the conflicted hero isn’t particularly compelling, though the women fare much better: Dahl as the femme fatale and Hagan as the understanding good girl who might be able to save the hero from himself. The two thieves in drag (one of whom is the busy supporting actor William Reynolds, billed for some reason as Regnolds) are fun; when they claim that their drag performances are from their background in vaudeville, one thug says, "Stick to dancing, Nijinsky!" Their drag is good though obvious from the moment we see them. Pretty average film noir. Pictured are Reynolds and Sullivan. [TCM]