Mystery Street is not a perfect noir, but it’s the sum of many great parts: the dark photography by John Alton, the acting by Elsa Lanchester (as Mrs Smerling), Jan Sterling, Sally Forrest, Betsy Blair, and Ricardo Montalban, and the screenplay full of twists by Sydney Boehm and Richard Brooks. Montalban as Peter Moralas (yes, spelled Moralas in the credits, instead of the more obvious Morales) is not the typical detective, not just because he’s Hispanic, but he’s also very chipper, even when investigating a murder.
It’s almost a 5-star film, if not for how the story feels a bit forced when Moralas forgets to pin the motive to the accused; perhaps the Hays Code didn’t want Preston Sturges to bring up the unwanted pregnancy yet again.
4.5 stars
With cinematography by noir hero John Alton and an Oscar-nominated script by Leonard Spigelgass, John Sturges’ Mystery Street probably doesn’t receive the plaudits it deserves. When female remains are found in the dunes of Cape Cod, Lieutenant Peter Morales (Ricardo Montalban) teams up with the district attorney and Harvard forensic medicine expert Dr. McAdoo (Bruce Bennett) to identify the victim and investigate her murder. (Side note: This is one of the only noirs set in Massachusetts.) Morales and his team utilize the most advanced forensic technology (impressive for the time, primitive today) to match the body to Vivian Heldon (Jan Sterling), an entertainer in a sleazy bar who’s been missing for some time. Despite viewers learning the identity of the killer in the first act, the detection process is still engaging in part through the cast of secondary characters linked by circumstance: Vivian’s loopy, scheming landlady Mrs. Smerling (a marvelous Elsa Lanchester), naïve newlywed Henry Shanway (Marshall Thompson) whose car Vivian “borrowed” on the night of her death, millionaire James Harkley (Edmon Ryan) who may have been Vivian’s married lover. Alton’s touch is evident in many sequences, creating caverns of shadow and light in Vivian’s bar, Mrs Smerling’s apartment, and Boston’s subway tunnels.
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