With a 60-year career in show business spanning comedies, westerns, and dramas in both films and television, Cuban-American Cesar Romero isn’t a name naturally associated with film noir, but he adds a unique quality in the lead role of Richard Vernon’s Street of Shadows (US: The Shadow Man). Physically imposing but relatively soft-spoken, Romero is enigmatic as London underworld figure Luigi, the owner of a bustling saloon-casino joint often used as a meeting place for shady characters, which keeps the police hanging around. When his former girlfriend (Angele Abbe) is found stabbed to death in his apartment, Luigi is apprehended but manages to escape police custody and trap the real murderer with a little help from his new flame, Barbara Gale (Kay Kendall), the wife of an abusive gambler. Victor Maddern stands out as Danny “Limpy” Thomas, Luigi’s hobbling assistant who stays behind to close up the saloon every night (“You’ve never taken a girl home, have you, Limpy?”), and Edward Underdown plays Detective Inspector Johnstone, who leads the investigation assisted by Sergeant Hadley (Robert Cawdron). The elliptical story takes a few odd detours (for example, the need for the fortune teller is unclear), but it keeps a grip on the viewer, especially with the thick atmosphere of empty, rain-soaked streets outside (there’s a breathtaking image of Luigi’s silhouette carrying a dead body in a tunnel) and smoky, crowded club with its two-way mirror inside. The film seems to have greater artistic ambition than the average noir, including Eric Spear’s harmonica-driven score which accelerates tempo to add excitement during the final act. Cast note: both female leads, Kendall and Abbe, died extremely young within a few years of the film’s release.