Behind Green Lights

Behind Green Lights has the gimmick where everything basically happens inside a police station over the course of a single evening. A man is murdered, a body is stolen, blackmail is committed, and more. All of this happens within the boundaries of those green lights outside the station. While the mystery that makes up the central plot is interesting, though, the revelation—or at least a big part of it—comes way too soon deflating much of the tension. There is a bit of tongue-in-cheek to the whole affair that helps get it over some of this but ultimately it is quite a bit uneven.

The mystery begins when a car is found parked in front of the police station with a dead body behind the wheel, shot through. The man turns out to be Walter Bard, a private investigator. The murder weapon, left inside the car, is covered with the fingerprints of Janet Bradley (Carole Landis), the daughter of a front-running candidate for Mayor in the upcoming elections. When questioned, Janet admits to having met Walter earlier, trying to pay him off when he blackmailed a friend. When Walter refused the amount she was able to raise, she took his gun and forced him to hand over what he had. She claims he was still alive when she left. Max Calvert (Roy Roberts), a newspaper owner, tries to pressure Police Lieutenant Sam Carson (William Gargan) into arresting her, despite no solid evidence against her, holding her just long enough to hurt her father’s chances at winning the mayoral office. Carson refuses to play that game. Instead, he launches a full investigation that uncovers that Walter was poisoned before being shot, and that someone is trying to steal the body in order to keep that information from being discovered. Meanwhile, the press is all over the station trying to glean any bit of information they can for their headlines, whether it hurts innocent people or not. 

There are a lot of irons in the fire with this film, to the point that it feels a bit over-stuffed. There is also an early reveal that spoils a great deal of the mystery. That, coupled with a bland protagonist and a leading lady that we are never convinced is guilty of the murder, leaves us with a limp story that struggles to hold our interest. Instead, what does keep us invested is the humor, of which there is quite a lot for a story such as this. The absurdity of how Walter’s body is kept from being disposed of before the poison can be discovered tells you just how serious you should be taking this film. If all of the film was like this it would be more interesting overall. Instead, it is tonally inconsistent, though it is never boring. 1946 - 64 minutes