bensonmum2 This is the ad Johnny Strange (Warren Douglas) places for a secretary: "Wanted: secretary to human dynamo. Exclamation point. Must be blonde, beautiful, between 22 and 28, unmarried, with a skin you love to touch and a heart you can't." Before he can finish, Gerry Smtih (Adele Mara) interrupts and takes the position. Her first function is to take a call form a mysterious woman looking for help. Johnny arrives at the appointed place at the appointed time to find a heavily veiled woman with a Spanish accent. She takes him to a house where Johnny finds a dead man on the floor. What has Johnny gotten himself into? I've read the reviews on IMDb and see that opinions are pretty much split on The Inner Circle. Personally, I loved it. It's fast paced, has some interesting characters played by an above average cast for this kind of movie, an interesting plot, nice cinematography, witty and sharp dialogue, and just about everything else. Other than the final scene where the mystery is solved, it all works for me. Even with the ridiculous ending, it's still a joy to watch everything before that unfold. What fun! The Inner Circle looks and feels like much more than the 40s B movie it is.I mentioned the cast and what a cast it is. Warren Douglas, William Frawley, Ricardo Cortez, Will Wright, and Dorothy Adams are all outstanding. But to me (and most everyone else), it's Adele Mara who really stands out. She's a real delight.Overall, I'm going to give this breezy, fun film a 7/10.

bkoganbing Republic Pictures gave the movie-going public The Inner Circle back in 1946. It's a lightweight mystery about a gossip columnist who was shot to death and private detective Warren Douglas is near framed and unframed for the deed. Truth be told not too many people liked the columnist who had a sideline in blackmail.Doing the framing on Douglas is Adele Mara who gets hired as Douglas's secretary, frames him and the alibis Douglas all in a day. She's beautiful and quite an operator and has a sister in Martha Montgomery who was a victim of the columnist's blackmail.The columnist operated out of Ricardo Cortez's nightclub where he has the sultry Virginia Christine as his regular singer. There are also a pair of household help the victim had, maid Dorothy Adams who was also Gene Tierney's maid in Laura and gardener Will Wright. Both of them are looking to pocket what they can from an employer neither was crazy about.Trying to figure it all out is homicide detective William Frawley and from the beginning the guilty party was rather obvious. What took everyone so long?Not the best murder mystery out there.

David (Handlinghandel) This is a romantic, comic mystery. Warner Brothers turned out a lot of these in the thirties and early forties. Jane Wyman was often the girl.Here, we have several girls. We have the secretary who appears out of nowhere. She works for a private investigator, Johnny Strange. (Was there another noun that could be added to Johnny to make a name for a movie character in that decade?) Then there's the mysterious veiled woman who calls for his services. Then there's Virginia Christine (Mrs. Olson of the coffee commercials a few decades later.) She sings in a club. Then there's ... OK: No more about the plot.That excellent and durable actor Ricardo Cortez somehow found himself at Republic. He turns in a variation on his usual cynical, suave performance. It's not his worst, either. But he is fourth-billed, below William Frawley, who plays a cop. And Adele Mara gets top billing.It's fun to watch. It could very easily have been better but it isn't terrible.

cinema_universe Warren Douglas, with his B-movie leading-man good looks, appeared in a string of low budget murder yarns. Although regular commercial TV was still a few years away, this film seems to have a 'look' similar to television's detective shows of the 1950's. In fact, a number of this film's supporting cast members would be commonly seen in supporting roles on television, less than ten years hence.In this particular outing Warren Douglas plays a private eye named 'Johnny Strange' (no kidding), who runs a detective agency called (get ready--) "Action Incorporated". The story line is somewhat commonplace, starting with the murder of a well known radio personality, and involving a strange "Spanish woman" (that's how the other characters refer to her), some skulking house servants, a missing diamond, a duplicate beautiful blonde, and--of course-- a blustery, mis-guided police detective (William Frawley, who could play these roles in his sleep).This poverty row feature might turn up on TV, but more likely than not, you'll have to rent or buy a copy of this film from a dealer of video obscurities. Although typical of it's genre, it's an enjoyable watch, nonetheless. Recommended.