This Monogram Pictures whodunit reveals precisely whodunit in its first scene, as a smooth-talking stranger (John Hamilton, later Clark Kent's editor Perry White on Adventures of Superman) asks the time of an office building janitor (Mantan Moreland) at the scene of a strangulation murder... but when an ambitious assistant attorney (Dick Purcell) attempts to bring the full weight of the lawn down upon the killer the suspect is proven to be a deaf mute. Veteran Poverty Row director William Beaudine withholds the revelation of howdunit for the next sixty minutes, as protagonist Purcell risks his career to bring the killer to justice. A former Warner Brothers contract player, Purcell had paired with Moreland for the comic horror caper King of the Zombies (1941) but the pair gets next to no screentime here, partnering Purcell instead with dumb cop Warren Hymer (a former Columbia trouper who famously lost his position when he aired considerably more than his grievances in front of studio chief Harry Cohn) as the corpses pile up around them. The athletic and charismatic Purcell would to play Captain America in Republic Pictures' serial adaptation of the popular comic strip but sadly the 35 year-old actor succumbed to a fatal heart attack before the first chapter reached theatres. In death, Purcell held for over sixty years the record for being the only actor to play Captain America on the big screen.

By Richard Harland Smith