Where’s a juror when you need one?
The Missing Juror (1944), dir. Oscar (Budd) Boetticher, w/ Jim Bannon (Joe Keats), Janis Carter (Alice Hill), George Macready (Harry Wharton), Joseph Crehan (Willard Apple)
This is a B film, but fun to watch. It reunites Jim Bannon and George Macready who appeared together in the first I Love a Mystery film. Bannon, here playing a reporter, does a good job as an investigator, while Macready does a good job of playing someone so tightly wound you know he’s going to snap. The premise here is that Macready plays a man who was wrongly convicted of killing his sweetie, and who gets a reprieve at the last minute from his own execution, but never fully recovers, finally committing suicide. The jury feels sick about the verdict that drove Macready to the nuthouse, and they are now dying one by one. Bannon proceeds to investigate and his budding romance with Alice Hill, who had been on that jury, spurs him to even greater efforts. Of course, his investigation is hampered by the fact that he and some of the other figures are idiots, which gives the killer a chance to take action. Still, it’s enjoyable.
