Behind Green Lights 1946 Written by Charles G Booth and Scott Darling, directed by Otto Brower. William Gargan and Carole Landis star in this 20th Century Fox crime film.
A car rolls up to the police station in the middle of the night. Inside is a dead man, shot through the heart. Lieutenant Sam Carson is the first cop out of the front door. He knows the dead man, a notorious scumbag blackmailer called Walter Bard. Sam finds a notebook with a notation about an 8pm meeting with Janet Bradley. She admits she was there despite having raised only half of the $20,000 blackmail money she needed. While she was there she grabbed Bard's gun and took the blackmail evidence from Bard. She dropped the gun into Bard's car while scramming out of there and burned the evidence when she got home.
As the investigation continues more suspects, clues and characters flash by our eyes. The flower lady and a couple of reporters are the comic relief. The coroner is a crooked guy who is under the thumb of a nasty newspaper owner. The coroner hasn't told Sam that Bard was poisoned, the crooked newspaper guy wants the coroner to get rid of Bard's body, the coroner tries but that fails and the body winds up in the press office. It's discovery makes a mess of things for the baddies and it's not too long before more clues point the finger at the real killer.
I really enjoyed the film, it's a nice mix of police procedure with some comedy and a dash of romance at the end. I found a copy on the Internet Archive and I see it's on Tubi but the copy isn't quite as good.
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