Footsteps in the Dark

A gentleman of high society keeps a life he tells nobody about. He writes murder mysteries and spends his spare time with the police trying to solve crimes. The hidden occupation becomes a problem once his wife starts asking; he has to account for the disappearances and the very late nights. The film sets a crime plot inside a comedy and draws its tension less from the murder than from the growing of the lie. How seriously amateur detection can be taken stands inside the account as a question. It comes from the vein of fast talking American comedy of 1941. The price of a double life comes out, in the end, in the hero’s own house. Errol Flynn and Brenda Marshall take the leads, with Ralph Bellamy also in the cast. Lloyd Bacon’s ninety six minute American film was completed in 1941.