Nachts am Teufelspunkt (1954)

Nachts am Teufelspunkt: Directed by Montgomery Tully. With Richard Arlen, Greta Gynt, Donald Houston, Edwin Richfield. Based on how far out of the socket the long arm of coincidence is stretched in this film, it is a lot closer to a Tex Avery cartoon then it is any kind of film noir genre. American Richard Arlen, long past his prime and cast in order to have an American actor heading the cast so the film might actually induce an American booking (an observation based on the reality of selling tickets and with no intentions of knocking the other-wise good all British cast), gets innocently involved with a drug ring when he is left a package containing their stolen goods. Some stuff happens but he and a detective meet and eventually round up the crooks. The other primary reason for an independent B-film of this quality ending up with 20th Century-Fox as the distributor is that TC-F was up to their ears in slow-in-production CinemaScope films and couldn’t make enough films fast enough to meet the demands of their exchanges and exhibitors and had to turn to the indies to provide more product. Actually that is the first reason and the Arlen casting was second.

“Difficult to know what is more creaky Richard Arlen or the plot.The plot is to do with the theft of drugs.The plot itself is slightly absurd wiith most of the action taking place at the desk of Donald Houston,who is the director of an insurance company who is paying out for the thefts.Richard Arlen is well past his prime.Michael Balfour plays his usual villain..”