Movie Review: The Tattooed Stranger (1950)

Synopsis: A woman is found murdered inside a parked car and a rookie police detective and his partner are assigned to investigate. With no information about the woman's identity, all they have to go on is a tattoo on her wrist and some bloodied blades of grass, the latter results in them recruiting an attractive female botanist for help.

Whos' in it? The movie stars John Miles, Patricia Barry, Walter Kinsella, Henry Lascoe and Frank Tweddell.

Review: As has been the case in the past, I ended up watching The Tattooed Stranger this morning more for the short runtime (64 minutes) than anything else. As a result, I wasn't overly sure what to expect from the movie, especially since the description didn't have a lot of detail. In the end, it wound up being an OK choice but nothing I would consider memorable.

The movie is very basic as far as the police investigation goes. All Detective Tobin (Miles) had to go on is the killer is about 5-foot-10 (determined by the placement of the driver's seat) and the victim had a Navy tattoo on her wrist. The bloodied blades of grass, identified by botanist Dr. Mahan (Barry) narrowed down where the woman was killed. At first, that limited information seemed to be a lot to overcome by, by the time they conducted a couple interviews, they had suspects narrowed down.

There were a couple interesting twists, such as a town drunk being paid to desecrate the victim's corpse (to get rid of the tattoo) and the killer continuing his spree by murdering witnesses. However, those things ultimately had no bearing on the plot because they happened too late. The tattoo had already been photographed and killer struck down a witness only after they told Tobin everything they knew. The lack of urgency did make the film a little dull.

I also felt like the movie didn't do justice to the romance angle between Tobin and Mahan. For one, it didn't really seem necessary and since the movie wasn't long enough to give it enough screentime, just seemed both rushed and forced. It may have worked better had Mahan been involved with every step in the investigation as Tobin's partner rather than just being included sporadically.

Final Opinion: I think this was a movie that had potential but because of the shorter runtime, had to make things a little too easy for the police, ruining what could have been a solid mystery and being nothing more than an average film.

My Grade: C

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