seymourblack-1 This remake of Robert Siodmak's "Pieges" (1939) is an engaging thriller about Scotland Yard's pursuit of a London serial killer who attracts his victims by advertising in the newspapers' personal columns. The mysterious maniac, who's clever enough to have avoided being caught by the police, is also conceited as he regularly sends them notes that include poetry and clues to the identities of his forthcoming targets. Checks carried out by the police reveal that the killer's verses are strongly influenced by the works of Charles Baudelaire and betray a preoccupation with a perceived link between beauty and death. Furthermore, the typeface of these notes is so distinctive that they could only have been produced by one specific typewriter.Sandra Carpenter (Lucille Ball) is a brash New York City dancer who'd travelled to London to work in a stage musical which had closed prematurely due to poor box office returns. After working for a while in her next job as a taxi-dancer in a popular dance hall, she becomes concerned when her fellow dancer and good friend Lucy Barnard (Tanis Chandler) goes missing. Police Inspector Harley Temple (Charles Coburn), is convinced that Lucy has become the killer's latest victim and so interviews Sandra. He quickly recognises her strong personal qualities and so invites her to assist in his hunt for the killer by acting as the bait to catch the culprit. Sandra readily agrees to work undercover as a temporary detective and then starts to systematically reply to each new personal ad that appears.Through her work, Sandra meets a variety of contacts including a seriously deranged retired dress designer called Charles van Druten (Boris Karloff) and a strange character called Dr Nicholas Moryani (Joseph Calleia) who it later transpires is involved in transporting young women to work as slaves in South America. In another of her blind dates, her contact, who she was due to meet at a classical music concert, fails to turn up, but that evening at the concert she meets nightclub owner Robert Fleming (George Sanders) and very soon, they fall in love.Robert is a sophisticated womaniser who lives in a large house with his business partner and close friend, Julian Wilde (Cedric Hardwicke). On the night of their engagement party, Sandra finds a number of suspicious items in Robert's desk (including Lucy's photograph) which lead to him being arrested and becoming the prime suspect in Inspector Temple's investigation but finding conclusive proof of his guilt proves to be extremely difficult."Lured" features a colourful collection of characters and the performances of its top quality cast are consistently good. Lucille Ball is irrepressible despite the number of times that her character has to be rescued from threatening situations and the unorthodox ways in which her bodyguard, Detective H.R. Barrett (George Zucco) finds the solutions to his crossword puzzles are also quite amusing. The emphasis in making this film was clearly on producing an upbeat thriller which has many of the characteristics of a routine whodunit (e.g. numerous red herrings) and judged purely on this basis, it is very successful and entertaining.

Robert J. Maxwell It's kind of fun, an example of an early serial killer, just as tricky as all the more modern ones. This madman advertises for pretty girls then murders them because he's too shy to reveal his love. (It's murky, but then the whole plot is a little turbid.) It's more amusing than suspenseful. Lucille Ball, doing a fine job, is swept up in the police effort to nail the murderer. She's used as bait.Of course, the agony columns carry lots of advertisements for pretty girls available for promising jobs, and Ball has to answer the most suspicious-looking adverts. (This is in London.) One of them is Boris Karloff, more menacing than ever, who has her wear a formal gown of his own design and displays her before an audience of dogs and mannequins in his shabby loft. He goes berserk and begins to chase her around with a sabre. He is, however, more of a red herring than a monster.The real killer is strongly hinted at, about two thirds of the way through the movie, as the movie grows less comic and somewhat darker.The cast is exceptionally good. George Sanders is always a splendid cad, and he has a sort of above-it-all character here, minus the sneer but with that built-in superiority. He's also believable as a male romantic lead. Lucille Ball is not nearly as dumb as Lucy and gets to stretch her acting chops a little. She has no esplaineen to do regarding her performance. But then everyone is quite all right. Interesting to see Sir Cedric Hardwicke as a villain. He's certainly convincing. What a marvelous voice. Joseph Calleia is so overcooked as another villain that his eyes pop out like the thermometer button that comes with the Thanksgiving turkey. George Zucco, for a change, is a lower-class cop, on the side of the angels.It's a good example of the kind of films that used to be put out in the 30s and 40s. It's overscored. The music tells us exactly what sensations we should feel, just in case we're confused. Loose ends lie all over the place. It's unpretentious but it includes poems from Baudelaire and Schubert's Eighth Symphony without any apology or judgment.You'll probably like it.

moonspinner55 Early directorial effort from Douglas Sirk offers an offbeat role for Lucille Ball, ably playing an American dancer in London who is enlisted by Scotland Yard to catch a poem-writing serial killer who preys on showgirls. Leo Rosten's screenplay (culled from perhaps various treatments by Jacques Companéez, Simon Gantillon, and Ernest Neuville) is loosely-hinged at best, thin at worst. A sequence with Boris Karloff as a delusional designer goes on far too long, as does a tiresome thread with Ball working as a maid for a possible pervert. Entertaining on a minor level, especially for Lucy-addicts (her dryly comic exasperation is very funny, as is her rapport with the inspectors on the case). George Sanders is ideally cast as a wealthy nightclub owner who takes a shine to our heroine--and who wouldn't? Ball may be photographed in black-and-white, but she exudes both sophisticated glamor and attractive street-smarts. She's a peach. **1/2 from ****

dougdoepke Oddball film with a thriller premise—a poetic serial killer is on the loose. However, the movie soon turns into more of a psychological drama than anything else. Sandra (Ball) goes undercover in a house full of suspects to smoke out the culprit. Now, mystery thrillers usually thrive on atmosphere and suspense as we sort through suspects while tension mounts. However, the narrative here meanders, especially after we're tipped off to the culprit, while the photography remains fairly gray and uninteresting. Perhaps the movie's direction isn't surprising. Director Sirk made his name helming high-class soap opera, which the lengthy romantic side here resembles.Nonetheless, Ball is ravishing and gets to play dress-up. Seeing her here reveals a whole different side from the slapstick comedienne. Sanders is smooth and charming as expected. But the movie can't seem to figure out just what his role is. Speaking of roles, the brief Karloff freak-out is a head-scratcher. He's a name star, yet gets only a 15-minute cameo and then disappears. I'm guessing the segment was inserted to spice up the marquee.The concert scene, however, remains an amusing surprise with the bearded man and the clever dialog. But the screenplay itself is just too flabby and the direction too slack to effectively realize the promising premise.