Spikeopath Decoy is directed by Jack Bernhard and adapted to screenplay by Nedrick Young from a story written by Stanley Rubin. It stars Jean Gillie, Robert Armstrong, Herbert Rudley, Sheldon Leonard and Edward Norris. Music is by Edward J. Kay and cinematography by L. William O'Connell.Margot Shelby (Gillie) is dying on the sofa, a "victim" of a gunshot wound. Sgt. Jo Portugal (Leonard) leans in to hear the story of how she came to be in this situation…Manic, delirious, bonkers, nasty, Decoy is all of those things, and more, wonderfully so. Running at under 80 minutes, this "B" noir out of Monogram spins a cruel tale of greed, fatalism and cold blooded homicide, all propelled by one of the coldest and wickedest femme fatales to have ever worn a pair of stilettos.Plot involves money of course, there's a pot load of it buried somewhere and Margot Shelby wants it. The trouble is is that her criminal boyfriend, Frank Olins (Armstrong), is going to the gas chamber and he isn't telling anyone where the loot is. No problem for Margot, she uses her cunning feminine wiles to ensnare a couple of male dupes into her web, and then the three of them resurrect Frank from the dead and put into action a plan that will reveal where the cash is. Easy Peasy!As the brilliant beginning has shown us, we know the fate of Margot, what you can't be ready for is what she is prepared to do to achieve her aims, and her means and motives sock you right between the eyes. Even as death approaches she still has to have the last cruel laugh. The beautifully sensuous Gillie gives a thoroughly memorable performance, it's a tragedy that she would die three years later of pneumonia, aged just 33.Elsewhere. Bernhard (who was married to Gillie at the time) is only competent in direction, but along with the performance he gets out of Gillie (which was a veer from the norm for her), he also gets a cracker turn out of Leonard. Kay's music is inconsistent, even too breezy in the wrong areas, and O'Connell's photography is standard stuff that doesn't strive for any mood accentuation.Yes you have to kind of unscrew your brain and black out some of the more dafter elements here, and there's some unintentionally cheese laden moments, but what an experience it is all told. 7.5/10

mmmarks This film deserves to be seen, but it does not warrant such abundant high praise as given by others. The first half has many scenes in which the acting is wooden at best (e.g., the actress playing the nurse in the doctor's office is terrible), and many of the character bits fall flat. Note, for example, the moment when Jo Jo comes into the bar and tosses a coin tip to the flashy pianist. When the pianist grabs the coin with his left hand, the music keeps right on playing as if he had three hands. The bit is supposed to signify Jo Jo's "coolness," due to his friendly relationship with the black musician, but the soundtrack error undermines the intent. Making things worse is a gravely under-par musical score. The music is always trite, and, as another commentator has noted, it is often mixed too loud. This becomes most obvious in the doctor's office scenes, where the sugary "love theme" comes on way too strong. Perhaps the composer was trying to write against the tone of the film to give it more weirdness, but I doubt it. Many other noir films of this period have scores that are much more effective—either more over the top and jazzy or more restrained. (Rozsa's noir film scores have powerhouse openings, then tend to be quite reticent until the ending.)To be fair, I wish the DVD version now available had the complete auto murder sequence (with Gillie running over her victim twice!), because I am sure that would have made the film stronger overall. And seeing it in a theater with a revved up audience would certainly make it more fun. But even so, this is an example of a film that got overrated due to its being out of circulation for so long. Sure it's dark and nasty and weird; it's just not very good.

MartinHafer "Decoy" features the most heartless woman in film noir history. Jean Gillie is a horrible person--the best femme fatale you can find. The film begins with her dying--and she tells the police what led her to this fate. What follows is a story of one betrayal after another after another, as Gillie's loyalty, it seems, is to her self alone.Her story begins with Gillie's boyfriend (Robert Armstrong) on death row. The problem isn't that she cares about him, but he knows where a huge pile of loot is hidden--and she is determined to somehow save him because he won't just tell her where it is. The plan is medically impossible, but she finds a very gullible doctor (Herbert Rudley) and gets him to agree to give him an injection of some weird drug that will supposedly revive him. Naturally, along the way, Gillie kills off everyone--even her revived boyfriend. But, sadly for her, he plans don't work out--but I don't want to say more as it would spoil the film.The film has some exceptional moments--most of which are Gillie's. For instance, the scene where she shoots the doctor as she laughs is reminiscent of Richard Widmark in "Kiss of Death". There also is the that that after one of men is killed, she makes out over the lifeless corpse below her! What a horrid person! The only negatives are the silliness of the revival of the executed man AND the complete lack of blood when the doctor is not only shot but drags himself to a final confrontation. I know in the 1940s they tended to avoid using blood--but NONE! Also, this is not a problem with the film per se, but it was odd and tough to see Sheldon Leonard playing a cop--and a non-crooked one to boot! He was almost the quintessential mobster and accepting him as a detective was tough. Still, it's well worth seeing and exciting for any fan of the genre.

JLRMovieReviews We open on a man who seems disoriented and who is walking on the side of a country road and moving slowly and deliberately like a zombie. Who is this strange man? And, what is he up to? We see him hitchhiking, getting a ride, and getting into town. He arrives at an apartment building, and as he goes up the elevator and on his desired floor, we see he is armed.Newcomer Jean Gillie narrates this story by flashback. She tells of how her man was in stir. She wants him out so that she can get her hands on his stolen loot that he had hidden and only he can find. The hitch is that he is about to get the chair, and she with an accomplice are planning on stealing a corpse and bringing him back to life.This definitely is a curiosity piece and perhaps the weakest of the lot in the Classic Film Noir Set #4. But still worth a look for its relatively fast pace and unique plot that, while it feels ahead of its time, it bites off more than it can chew. With its outlandish elements, the viewer may feel somewhat disappointed and/or dissatisfied. But overall for 70 minutes, it does entertain.