Lured

LURED-1947-Interesting overlooked murder mystery directed by Douglas Sirk (later known for his glossy Hollywood tearjerkers).

Lucille Ball stars as an American dancer in London who's recruited by a Scotland Yard inspector (Charles Coburn) to be a decoy to help capture a killer who meets his victims via personal ads. Costar George Sanders is his usual suave self and a chief suspect. George Zucco is great as the crossword puzzle solving detective who helps out. Boris Karloff has a one scene in a stand out role as a crazy dress designer/red herring! Other suspects include Alan Mowbray, Cedric Hardwick and Joseph Calleia. Alan Napier is Coburn's assistant.

It's a remake of a French film "Pieges" (PERSONAL COLUMN; LURED's original working title) made in 1939 by Roberet Siodmak with Erich Von Stroheim in the Karloff role. Earlier Von Stroheim was Karloff's immediate successor for the role of Jonathan Brewster in ARSENIC AND OLD LACE on Broadway.

For some reason LURED was not easy to find for a long time but TCM has showed it several times in recent years and Kino finally released it on DVD.

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A Puzzle

MARATHON-2002-This arty filmed in black and white story concerns a young woman (Sara Paul) as she tries to solve over 70 crossword puzzles in 24 hours. The burning question is: why??

Most of it takes place on various NYC subway lines but later she returns to her apartment and seems to lose it big time! It’s fairly interesting at first but loses steam, as the story has nowhere to go.

Thanks for reading!