Mystery Street | |
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Theatrical release poster
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Directed by | John Sturges |
Produced by | Frank E. Taylor |
Screenplay by |
Sydney Boehm Richard Brooks |
Story by | Leonard Spigelgass |
Starring |
Ricardo Montalban Sally Forrest Bruce Bennett Elsa Lanchester |
Music by | Rudolph G. Kopp |
Cinematography | John Alton |
Edited by | Ferris Webster |
Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
Release date
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Running time
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93 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $730,000 |
Box office | $775,000 |
Mystery Street is a 1950 black-and-white film noir directed by John Sturges with cinematography by cinematographer John Alton. The film features Ricardo Montalban, Sally Forrest, Bruce Bennett, and Elsa Lanchester.
The MGM film was shot on location in Boston and Cape Cod; according to one critic, it was "the first commercial feature to be predominantly shot" on location in Boston. Also featured are Harvard Medical School in Roxbury, Massachusetts and Harvard University in nearby Cambridge. The film's story earned Leonard Spigelgass a nomination as Best Story for the 23rd Academy Awards.
Blonde B-girl Vivian (played by Jan Sterling) is pregnant and tries to contact the father to seek financial help. He refuses to meet and stops taking her calls. She goes to "The Grass Skirt" bar in Boston where she works and picks up a drunk (Marshall Thompson) so she can use his car to drive to Cape Cod, where she can confront the father face to face.
Vivian drives with the car's owner drunk by her side. When the man realizes he's miles from Boston, he demands to be taken back. Instead, she ditches him and steals the car. But the father of the child, James Harkley, kills Vivian rather than pay up or risk exposure of the affair to his wife and family. He buries Vivian's body and sinks the car in a pond.