DailyView: Day 326, Movie 467

Lured is a 1947 film noir featuring the talents of Pre-I Love Lucy, Lucille Ball and directed by Douglas Sirk. The cast featured a group of other talented horror actors such as Bela Legosi and George Zucco.

There is a serial killer running around London meeting eventual victims through the personal ads. He would then write a poem to taunt the police about his upcoming murder. When night club dancer Sandra Carpenter (Lucille Ball) came to the police to report a missing friend, the police, led by Chief Inspector Harley Temple (Charles Coburn), found her to be bright and intelligent and just the perfect woman to be their “bait” in an attempt to capture this killer.

Sandra responded to many different ads and wound up in several unlikely situations, but she was being shadowed by Officer H. R. Barrett (George Zucco). The plan to catch the killer hit a snag when Sandra met and became engaged to socialite Robert Fleming (George Sanders).

This was an extremely enjoyable film that showed off some talented actors. Lucille Ball in particular was a breath of fresh air. I loved how the film portrayed Sandra as intelligent and quick-thinking, and not just as a damsel-in-distress. She was an active participant in the operation to catch the killer, and, along the way, stopped some other potential criminals. The scenes with Lucille Ball and Boris Karloff as Charles van Druten, crazed fashion designer, were worth the film watch alone.

Admittedly, the movie did bounce between tones. There were plenty of moments of humor, especially in the dialogue, and that prevented the movie from fully becoming anxious and tense. However, I thought the balance was perfectly struck as I still felt nervous for Sandra in every situation that she found herself in.

While the killer’s identity is fairly apparent once introduced, it did not prevent the wonder of how they were going to bring the culprit to justice. I enjoyed the relationship between Sandra and Temple as well as Sandra and Barrett. There was a friendship and a mutual respect among them that you do not usually see in films of this time.

Lured was a completely enjoyable film that I am glad I got to watch for today’s DailyView.