Charles McGraw was the toughest looking star and his gravelly voice was exactly what you would expect, but in this movie he proved he was a big pushover for a dame. The film started in an exciting way with a man witnessing a murder, then being held up. He claims he isn't so innocent and will split robbery proceeds of $100,000 50/50 if he is released. I won't give anything away but the film doesn't let up from there.
Money is the theme - the lack of it, wanting it and what it can give you. "Honest" Joe Peters (Charles McGraw) is an insurance investigator who is quite content with his work and his pay - until he meets a beautiful icy stranger, Diane (Joan Dixon) at the airport. In an amusing scene she gets a cheaper ticket by posing as his wife, but it also means they have to share the same hotel room when the plane is stranded, due to bad weather. Diane is a model, and is looking for a man with wealth but there is something about Joe that she likes and he feels the same way about her.
The next time they meet she is the mistress of a racketeer but she renews her friendship with Joe. Joe desperately wants to give Diane all the things he thinks she deserves and so approaches Kendall Webb (Lowell Gilmore) with plans he has for a mail robbery - he has inside information due to the insurance company he works for. Meanwhile, in the weakest part of the film Diane has changed her mind and is now content for Joe to be just an "Honest Joe" on a minimum wage. He can't get out of it and he and Diane honeymoon up in a mountain cabin as he awaits his share of the money to be delivered in a fire extinguisher. Somehow mountains and canoeing do not seem to come naturally to Diane, who, all through the film has worn a different fur coat in every scene!!! Joe's partner Harry (Louis Jean Heydt) smells a rat. It is his cabin and he had just bought a new fire extinguisher the year before. The stage is set for a gripping finale in the Los Angeles River (without the water!!!) There is a symbolic last scene as Diane totters away (on high heels) to an unknown future.
Joan Dixon, who was an extremely beautiful Gene Tierney look-alike, was a protégé of Howard Hughes, but, alas, one of his failures. She left films in 1952 to marry but it didn't work out and the next year she was back at the studios trying to pick up the pieces - unfortunately she couldn't.
Money is the theme - the lack of it, wanting it and what it can give you. "Honest" Joe Peters (Charles McGraw) is an insurance investigator who is quite content with his work and his pay - until he meets a beautiful icy stranger, Diane (Joan Dixon) at the airport. In an amusing scene she gets a cheaper ticket by posing as his wife, but it also means they have to share the same hotel room when the plane is stranded, due to bad weather. Diane is a model, and is looking for a man with wealth but there is something about Joe that she likes and he feels the same way about her.
The next time they meet she is the mistress of a racketeer but she renews her friendship with Joe. Joe desperately wants to give Diane all the things he thinks she deserves and so approaches Kendall Webb (Lowell Gilmore) with plans he has for a mail robbery - he has inside information due to the insurance company he works for. Meanwhile, in the weakest part of the film Diane has changed her mind and is now content for Joe to be just an "Honest Joe" on a minimum wage. He can't get out of it and he and Diane honeymoon up in a mountain cabin as he awaits his share of the money to be delivered in a fire extinguisher. Somehow mountains and canoeing do not seem to come naturally to Diane, who, all through the film has worn a different fur coat in every scene!!! Joe's partner Harry (Louis Jean Heydt) smells a rat. It is his cabin and he had just bought a new fire extinguisher the year before. The stage is set for a gripping finale in the Los Angeles River (without the water!!!) There is a symbolic last scene as Diane totters away (on high heels) to an unknown future.
Joan Dixon, who was an extremely beautiful Gene Tierney look-alike, was a protégé of Howard Hughes, but, alas, one of his failures. She left films in 1952 to marry but it didn't work out and the next year she was back at the studios trying to pick up the pieces - unfortunately she couldn't.