Cape Cod Confidential

Mystery Street: Hollywood Solves Mystery of Lady in the Dunes

In 1950, Hollywood turned its attention toward crime on Cape Cod with the classic noir film, Mystery Street. The film recently came out for the first time on DVD, paired with another noir thriller, Act of Violence.

This taut police procedural was shot on location on Cape Cod and the Boston area. The film stars Ricardo Montalban as Barnstable detective Peter Moralas (an odd spelling, probably for legal reasons, for "Morales"). Moralas, who is responsible for the “Portuguese”section of Barnstable County, investigates a crime that is eerily reminiscent of the famous (and still unsolved) Lady in the Dunes case.

An unsuspecting birdwatcher finds a skeleton buried on a Cape Cod beach. Suspecting murder, Moralas brings the skeleton to a forensic scientist at Harvard University, Dr. McAdoo (Bruce Bennett).
 
The film unfolds like a 1950s version of the tee-vee program CSI. By combining state-of-the-art (at least for the era) forensic science and good-old-fashioned police work, Moralas pinpoints a suspect, Henry Shanway (Marshall Thompson). The audience knows that Shanway is innocent, a guy who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And as the trial approaches, the forensic evidence begins to point to another suspect.

 Will Lt. Moralas find the real killer in time before Shamway gets sent to the electric chair? That would be telling. But the movie keeps you guessing up until the end.

Mystery Street benefits from having a tight script by Sydney Boehm and the Academy-Award winning Richard Brooks (writer of Key Largo, Blackboard Jungle, In Cold Blood, and Looking for Mr. Goodbar), and equally economical direction by John Sturges (The Great Escape, The Magnificent Seven, and Gunfight at the OK Corral). Montalban gives an energetic and charming performance as Det. Moralas, and he is ably assisted by a terrific supporting cast that includes the beautiful Jan Sterling as a B-girl/prostitute in trouble, and scene-stealer Elsa Lanchester, who plays a conniving woman who solves the mystery ahead of the police and then tries to blackmail the real murderer.

In addition to murder and thrills, Mystery Street also comes with some biting social commentary about conditions on Cape Cod in the 1950s. When Moralas serves a search warrant on a Hyannis man whose family had been living in Barnstable "before there was a United States," the Yankee sniffs, “But from the way you talk, you haven’t been around here long.” Moralas ignores the comment, and continues his search, but finds nothing. As he leaves, the Cape Codder tells him, “You know, I’m used to respect. People looking up to me.”

“So am I,” Moralas answers as he starts out the door. “And my family hasn’t even been in this country for one hundred years.”

Ironically, Montalban is Mexican, not Portuguese. But to Hollywood in 1950, one Latino accent is as good as another.

For those who care about the quality of their DVDs, the transfer is pretty good, and there are no distracting scratches or pops. The film also comes with a commentary track by two historians of the film noir style, Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward. While these two know a lot about noir, they know absolutely nothing about Massachusetts geography. They don't seem to understand that Montalban plays a Cape Cod police detective, not a Boston detective, or that Harvard is in Cambridge.

I haven't found Mystery Street in local stores. It's possible that it is listed under "Act of Violence," which is the first title on the DVD. I got my copy from Amazon, and you can find it HERE. If you are looking for a stocking stuffer for that Cape Codder who has everything, this might do the trick.

If you happen to be a fan of film noir, Mystery Street also comes as part of the Film Noir Classic Collection (Vol. 4), a multi-disk DVD of 10 films: Act of Violence, Crime Wave, Decoy, Illegal, The Big Steal, They Live By Night, Side Street, Where Danger Lives, and Tension, in addition to Mystery Street. For an extra 10 bucks, you can get eight more films. You can buy it from Amazon HERE.

If you would like to see the trailer, Turner Classic Movies has it HERE.