Don't take small passenger vessels no matter how cheap they are; That is the message of this low-budget film noir where two scams are in play at the same time. The small tug's owner is involved in an insurance scam while another smarmy character is out to fleece somebody out of an inheritance. Robert Lowery is the sap who books one-way passage on the Merman (no relation to Ethel) after incorrectly assuming he accidentally killed a man. The ship's employees encourage him to leave the vessel at its first stop, but he refuses. Smarmy Charles Arnt plays the creepiest character on film since Dudley Digges in the original "The Maltese Falcon" (1931), a snickering fool out to grab Lowery's inheritance for himself with the help of an identity thief. Phyllis Brooks is the seemingly hard boiled dame he encounters on his way and obviously finds romance with. Standard but fun, this Pine Thomas production (a low budget subsidiary of Paramount Pictures) is fast moving and sometimes unpredictable.
Review of Dangerous Passage
