The Argyle Secrets

Shot in eight days on an infinitesimal budget, Cy Endfield’s The Argyle Secrets is a uniquely efficient little noir: action-packed and fast-paced with several twists and every secondary character made distinctive and memorable. Adapting his own radio play, Endfield may have sacrificed a little coherence by packing it all in to 64 minutes, but the result is the cinematic equivalent of a page turner with an unusual amount of daring from Endfield and cinematographer Stengler, such as clever cuts (the bathroom sink’s final drip becomes a just stopped human pulse, the cop’s roar becomes a train whistle) and a nicely done dream sequence with spiraling effect and rapid cutting. Story-wise, journalist Harry Mitchell (William Gargan) finds himself the primary suspect in the murder of the top editor of a competing newspaper who had just come into possession of a book of names of American VIP’s who had made deals with the Nazis just in case Germany had won the war. Having been misplaced by its original owner, such scandalous blackmail material has attracted attention not only from the police but from a group of violent crooks led by a charming woman named Marla (Marjore Lord) who snares the attentions of Harry. Low-key lighting stirs up the noir atmosphere, especially down by the docks, and Endfield even gets theatrical with the budget limitations at times, such as the two fedora-donned silhouettes outside the windows of Police Lieutenant Samuel Samson (Ralph Byrd). The film also takes surprisingly subversive detours, like when Harry has to strangle Marla as an excuse for her letting him flee and gets so turned on that he kisses her, or when Harry knocks out secretary Elizabeth Court with a punch to the face, which is especially outrageous because Court is played by Barbara Billingsley, who would go on to become America’s favorite suburban mom, June Cleaver, in television’s “Leave it to Beaver.”