DETOUR’s Tom Neal confers with Pamela Blake in THE CASE OF THE BABY-SITTER.


entertainingly into action in the climax. Also brightening things is Joi Lansing in an early role as a cocktail waitress. The other fix-up movie in the series was ROARING CITY (aka SISTERS IN CRIME); given that SCOTLAND YARD INSPECTOR could have found a home on one of the Hammer Noir sets, it’s odd that VCI didn’t choose to swap it out for ROARING CITY so we could at least have the complete Dennis O’Brien on disc. THE CASE OF THE BABY-SITTER is also an entry in a brief series—it was made back to back with THE HAT BOX MYSTERY, another item which could have been slipped into this set somewhere for the sake of completeness. Here, Tom Neal plays on-the-level private eye Russ Ashton, complete with a caterpillar mustache. Ashton’s firm runs to com- edy sidekick Harvard Quinlan (Allen Jenkins) and Gal Friday Susie Hart (Pamela Blake), and is hired by a bogus Duke (George Meeker) and Duchess (Rebel Randall) to guard a baby against kidnapping. Neal isn’t as engaging as a good guy as he was a sleaze, and comedy relief—much of it baby-centric—


swamps a minimal mystery element that revolves around stolen gems. Virginia Sale nags as Harvard’s hash-slinging love interest. Director Lam- bert Hillyer (DRACULA’S DAUGHTER) makes even this minimal feature—which could as easily be billed as a long short subject—drag, while chirrupy comedy music fails to impose a light, frothy feel. The third disc’s extras are trailers for FBI GIRL (“Woman on a Manhunt!”), DEADLY GAME aka THIRD PARTY RISK (“Wild Fury Sets the Pace”) and BAD BLONDE aka THE FLANAGAN BOY (“She’s Bad—All Bad”); the episode of PAT NOVAK—FOR HIRE which became the first story in PIER 23 (it plays better on the wireless, thanks to Jack Webb’s more authentically hard-boiled line readings); and an audio review of SCOTLAND YARD INSPECTOR by radio expert Joel Blumberg. There are no real gems in this collection—but if you’ve invested in the outstanding film noir box sets from Warners, you can always use these discs to provide B pictures for your own old-fashioned double features.


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