Girl on the Run (1953)

Directors: Arthur J. Beckhard, Joseph Lee

Writers: Arthur J. Beckhard, Cedric Worth

Composer: ???

Starring: Richard Coogan, Rosemary Pettit, Frank Albertson, Harry Bannister, Edith King, Charles Bolender, George Marsh, Renee De Milo, Scott Hale, John Krollers, Marlow, Mike O'Dowd, Joseph Sullivan, Steve McQueen

More info: IMDb

Tagline: GIRLS and GUNS... A Doublecross Backfired!

Plot: A hootchy-kootchy whodunit set at a small seedy carnival where a reporter tries to discover who killed his boss while his girlfriend inexplicably joins the burlesque show!

My rating: 7/10

Will I watch it again? Yes.

I digs me some movies that are set in a carnival!  Especially ones that give us the goods!

This one's got some burlesque action and that's A-OK in my book. One thing that might interest folks is this has the first film appearance of Steve McQueen.  That's him on the right (pictured below, not above).

For what it's worth, that machine remained intact until Charles Bronson showed up later and busted the mess out of it.  Hey!  More eye candy!

And some nice shot composition...

And this guy in the middle, Blake (played by the fantastic Charles Bolender), is the cat that runs the joint.  I'm assuming it's his biggest role as he only did three pictures and his part in this is important and rather substantial.  He's great in it, too, which makes it even more of a shame he didn't pop up in more pictures. 

The acting is pretty good as is the story and everything else.  The use of lighting is nicely handled and there are some neat shots in this short, barely and hour long movie.  What's more, the pacing is pretty brisk, too, although it's not without some padding of a few extra seconds of dancing girls here and there but that all helps add to the wonderful carnival atmosphere not only with the visuals but the constant carny sounds in the background.  The picture feels busy whether it is visually or not.  I really liked it.  It's the first of six crime pictures on a Something Weird Video DVD set called Weird-Noir.  This one film alone makes buying it worthwhile. Hopefully the others will be fun, too.