Chock full of film noir tropes (the shadowy streets, the boxing match, the suspicious chanteuse), John Gilling’s Three Steps to the Gallows (US: White Fire) uses a classic noir setup too: a man in a foreign country searching for his missing brother is followed by a strange figure on the street who leads him to a sleazy night club where a familiar woman sings on stage while the club owner informs the visitor that his brother is on Death Row for murder. That’s a noir premise! The man in Gilling’s film is American Gregor Stevens (Scott Brady), whose brother is charged with shooting the owner of the Gay Mask Club where songstress Yvonne Durante (Mary Castle), the daughter of a merchant ship captain (Julian Somers), not only takes the stage every night but serves as a connection for a smuggling syndicate operating out of a nearby travel agency. (Castle bears a striking resemblance to Rita Hayworth, minus the star power.) After hearing his brother’s side of the story from prison (just before the murder, he’d been knocked out and later woke up with diamonds in his pocket), Stevens runs against the clock to track down the real culprit, which includes evading maniacal drivers and punching his way through a half-dozen thugs preventing his exit from the club. Some of the acting may be substandard, and the fight choreography could be tightened up, but the film is more entertaining than its relative obscurity would suggest.