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“She’s a great kid. You can always trust her…to double-cross you.” Flaxy Martin is one of the most fatal of femme fatales ever to sear the screen—and provides a white-hot showcase role for the undersung Virginia Mayo, ounce for ounce matching in menace her White Heat costar James Cagney in his stone-cold criminality that same year.
Spinning a web of lies, the nasty nightclub chanteuse ensnares one lover, unsuspecting mob attorney Walter Colby (Zachary Scott), into taking the rap for a murder, while stringing along her other squeeze, gangster Hap Richie (Douglas Kennedy), for all he’s worth. The one fly in this spider-woman’s ointment: Colby escapes en route to prison and, rescued and restored by good-girl librarian Nora Carson (Dorothy Malone), he plots to return and clear his name. With dialogue by David Lang so hard-boiled you’ll grin with noirish glee and a delicious performance by The Maltese Falcon’s Elisha Cook Jr. in fullbore wisecracking gunsel mode, this tale of a deadly dame duping one chump too many is a helluva ride.
Original Release
02/15/1949
US Release
02/15/1949
Links
Cast
Name | Character |
---|
Virginia Mayo | Flaxy Martin |
Zachary Scott | Walter Colby |
Dorothy Malone | Nora Carson |
Tom D'Andrea | Sam Malko |
Helen Westcott | Peggy Farrar |
Douglas Kennedy | Hap Richie |
Elisha Cook Jr. | Roper |
Douglas Fowley | Max, Detective |
Monte Blue | Joe, Detective |
Leah Baird | Tenement Resident |
Directors
Writers
Cast
Name | Character |
---|
Virginia Mayo | Flaxy Martin |
Zachary Scott | Walter Colby |
Dorothy Malone | Nora Carson |
Tom D'Andrea | Sam Malko |
Helen Westcott | Peggy Farrar |
Douglas Kennedy | Hap Richie |
Elisha Cook Jr. | Roper |
Douglas Fowley | Max, Detective |
Monte Blue | Joe, Detective |
Leah Baird | Tenement Resident |
Marjorie Bennett | Nora's Neighbor |
Paul Bryar | Policeman with Witness |
Jack Cheatham | Police Dispatcher |
Edgar Dearing | State Trooper |
John Elliott | Judge Edward R. McVey |
Creighton Hale | George - Tenement Resident |
John Harmon | Fred Banford - Taxicab Driver |
Eddie Hart | Detective with Nora |
Lou Hicks | Bus Driver |
Fred Kelsey | Tenement Cop |
Producers
Name | Role |
---|
Saul Elkins | Producer |