The Mysterious Mr. Valentine (1946) Poster

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6/10
And I Certainly Can Use You
boblipton3 August 2021
Linda Sterling's car has a blow-out in front of a chemicals company. She goes in to use the phone, only to have the partner's wife rush in with a photographer to snap incriminating photos. She runs out, steals a car to drive home, gets into another accident and soon finds herself confronted by William Henry, who says 'you can use me, and I can use you..... as a client' and hands her a business card. He's a private investigator. When she gets a blackmail letter from 'Mr. Valentine', she realizes Henry was right.

It's one of those movies that seems to depend a lot on Henry stumbling around until he falls over the clues, but int the hands of B director Phil Ford -- son of Francis, nephew of John -- it's suffused with a light, breezy sense of humor that kept me amused throughout. Miss Sterling is lovely dressed in modern clothes, and Thomas Jackson is there, playing a police detective, as he had been since the 1920s.
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7/10
Even though the overly complicated start promises more than it finally delivers, this is still a winning mystery worth seeing
dbborroughs10 June 2009
Warning: Spoilers
Linda Sterling stars in complicated (at least to start) tale of a young woman who gets a blow out while driving home. Walking to get help she stops in a chemical plant. There she startles a chemist moving a body, and is photographed by a jealous wife who thinks here husband is having an affair. Leaving she finds her car outside and driving away she ends up running over a body in the road.(it will make sense when you see it) Blackmail and murder follow as Sterling tries to untangle the web of intrigue she's found herself caught in.

Good but overly complicated, especially for a film running only 55 minutes, this is a film that spins out so many plot threads in the first 10 minutes that it races to tie the remaining time. It doesn't do it badly, its just that the intensity of those opening minutes isn't sustained and the rest of the film seems almost too restrained as a result. I like the film, and I look forward to seeing it again. I just wish the film had maintained the sense that anything can happen that it has at the start, which makes it seem as though it isn't headed for the almost conventional ending it has. Even with the complaints this is very much worth a look.
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6/10
Routine comedy crime caper.
teachermarkthailand19 August 2021
It's an implausible romp and the switches between romantic comedy and serious criminal investigation makes you think that the film can't really settle on its identity.

Despite that, the script, cast and the characters manager to keep your interest for the hour.

It's silly, confusing and ultimately a lightweight B movie.

There's a genuinely funny moment when the heroine is forced to play a secretary and wear ridiculous coke bottle glasses.

For nostalgia freaks (like me) this film has enough going for it too keep me paying attention.

For others it might be a bit of a letdown.
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Noir-influenced Republic programmer can't live up to its terrific opening
bmacv11 November 2002
The Mysterious Mr. Valentine packs a whole truckload of plot into its first few minutes. A sudden blowout forces a young woman (Linda Stirling) off a deserted road late at night; a tumbledown factory nearby holds the only prospect for help. A chemist inside seems distracted, even nervous, as well he might, since a body that was lying in the back laboratory amid the flasks and retorts has up and vanished. Nonetheless, he produces a bottle (of hooch) to offer Stirling a hospitable drink. Suddenly, as they toast, the door bursts open and a flashbulb goes off; the chemist's wife, it seems, has her suspicions. Scared witless, Stirling bolts outside and tears off in the nearest car, only to run a man down. But we know something that she does not: It's the corpse that was in the back room....

Too bad the rest of the movie, a Republic crime programmer, doesn't live up to its breakneck opening. It looks surprisingly good, though, with a noirish fondness for crisp, intricate shadows. The story involves a brash, smart-mouthed private eye (William Henry) who tries to help Stirling locate the `Mr. Valentine' who's blackmailing her about the hit-and-run with a series of unsettling phone calls. The clean cinematography, unfortunately, belies a muddy plot, with more characters and subplots than its brevity can accommodate. It still generates a passing amount of fun and suspense, and stands as an example of how the light mystery programmers so popular in the late1930s came to take on the more freighted style of the late 1940s.
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7/10
You need me and I need you.....as a ?
AAdaSC31 January 2012
Linda Sterling (Janet) seems to be caught up in a big, complicated mess that involves murder, blackmail, adultery and theft and we see it all in the first 10 minutes or so. William Henry (Steve) is the private investigator who helps to solve the case and keeps her protected. He gets involved with various characters but you need to pay attention as no time is wasted in this fast-paced offering.

The acting is good although we get a few lame comedy attempts, eg, Linda Sterling pretending to be a secretary and wearing big glasses that means that she can't see properly. Yes....very funny. Actually, Linda Sterling is quite funny on another occasion, albeit unintentional. When William Henry is taking a beating and fighting for his life in the same room as Linda Sterling, she phones the police and does absolutely NOTHING to help him. And then, when the bad guy runs off, she shouts at Henry to get after him. WHAT? Get after him yourself, you silly bitch. Like I said, it is actually quite funny.

This film is a fun way to spend an hour but make sure you pay attention or you will lose the plot. And I doubt you'll guess who is behind it all.
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6/10
A cut above the average "B".
JohnHowardReid2 April 2018
Warning: Spoilers
Director: PHILIP FORD. Original screenplay: Milton Raison. Photography: Alfred Keller. Music score: Mort Glickman. Art director: Hilyard Brown. Set decorators: John McCarthy Jr and George Milo. Costume supervisor: Adele Palmer. Film editor: Richard L. Van Enger. Make-up supervised by Bob Mark. Assistant director: Jack Lacey. Sound recorded by Richard Tyler. Associate producer: Donald H. Brown. Executive producer: Herbert J. Yates.

Copyright 2 September 1946 by Republic Pictures Corp. No recorded New York opening. U.S. release: 3 September 1946. U.K. release through British Lion: floating from June 1947. No original Australian theatrical release as rights were sold direct to the 16mm market and released through the Home Talkie Company. 20th Century-Fox acquired Australian distribution rights on 1 July 1950 and this film was eventually released to cinemas on 5 November 1953. 56 minutes.

COMMENT: Directed by John Ford's brother, Philip, this noirish entry is a cut above the average Republic lower-case "B" picture. Admittedly the script is rather childish and full of holes, but it certainly has plenty of incident and is fast-paced. And the photography by Alfred Keller is quite inventive for a production of this sort. Even the music score by Mort Glickman is well above the pedestrian. And the playing is much more animated than in similar films.
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4/10
The mystery is "What happened?"
mark.waltz12 January 2019
Warning: Spoilers
I am not referring to what happened as in how did the film end, but why did the film switch gears halfway in to go from an intriguing film Noir like mystery to a standard crime drama where the detective automatically falls in love with the woman he's been trailing. She's not exactly a dark lady, even though she is troubled having believe she was responsible for a car accident where she hit someone on the highway, blinded by car lights approaching her. But when the men in the car approached her, they seem almost too eager to let her go and she's too willing to give her name and address without any question.

It's certainly not a nice night for driving for the film's trouble heroin, the pretty but bland Linda Stirling who is approached at her front door by detective William Henry who wants to know why she abandoned her car which wasn't even hers. The scenes leading up to this are intriguing, and there are a few afterwards which give promise that it will return to the initial dark theme, but it really never does in spite of the mystery behind why she has been allegedly framed. It becomes rather convoluted in trying to reveal the details of what happened and there are too many distractions involving the romance that grows between them.

As a semi film noir from Republic Studios, this has all the right elements with the dark photography, mysterious characters and a plot set up that seems to be Beyond deleting characters control. There are some interesting supporting characters, notably Virginia Christine and Virginia Brissac who plays Stirling's brittle companion. But unfortunately, there are quite a few plot holes that are stumbling blocks in the road and ultimately create a bigger bump then the one that Stirling felt when she hit the body in the middle of the highway.
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5/10
not easy to follow
blanche-220 October 2019
I admit I lost the thread of this plot after its powerful first ten minutes of this film from Republic Studios.

A young woman, Janet Spencer (Linda Stirling) has a blowout. She walks to a nearby chemical company to use the phone. The chemist inside (Tristram Coffin) is a distracted wreck. Turns out there's a body in the back room, except it's gone.

Just then, the chemist's wife Rita (Barbara Woodell) walks in with a photographer, claiming to have found her husband in a compromising position with Linda.

Linda beats the hell out of there, jumps into a car, and takes off. Then she hits a body. Two men emerge from another car and tell her it wasn't her fault; she was probably blinded by their headlights. They offer to take the man to the hospital.

Linda doesn't know it, but the body was that of the dead man who disappeared from the lab. Soon, she finds herself being blackmailed about the accident by a "Mr. Valentyne" who sends her notes demanding money.

Other people seem to have enjoyed this noirish film better than I did. It does start out as a noir but ends up as a fairly normal crime drama. Linda Stirlng is very pretty and as the detective who helps her, William Henry does a good job. Nice to see Virginia Christine as such a young woman in this. She later became the Folgers coffee lady, Mrs. Olsen.
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5/10
Nothing special
utgard1425 October 2022
Sometimes compelling, often confusing private eye flick from Republic. What is or isn't noir is debated a lot by classic film fans. You can see some of that in the reviews here. It's a bit like the horror vs thriller debate I guess. I don't see that it matters all that much. There's nothing in this that screams film noir to me but I could say the same for a lot of crime pictures that are widely accepted as staples of the genre. This is a so-so B movie from a "lesser" studio that could surprise you from time to time with real gems. This is not one of those times. If you're like me and you sometimes feel like you've seen everything from the 40s, give it a shot. It won't likely become a favorite but maybe you'll enjoy it for what it is.
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5/10
The Mysterious Mr. Valentine
CinemaSerf12 February 2023
"Janet" (Linda Stirling) gets a puncture and seeks the assistance of "Armstrong" (Tristram Coffin) incurring the chagrin of that man's rather jealous wife "Rita" (Barbara Wooddell). To make matters worse, she now drives off in the wife's car only to collide with another car and then find herself embroiled in a previous, and fatal, hit-and-run with the partner of the husband of the wife of the car she is driving. Still with me? Now she engages the help of PI "Morgan" (William Henry) to try to get to the bottom of an internecine mystery that involves fraud, insurance and mysterious women. It packs quite a lot of plot into an hour, but the acting and the dialogue is banal at best with very basic production values that smack more of television than cinema. It probably looked OK at a drive-in when the audience maybe had better things to do, and it really is pretty instantly forgettable fayre.
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5/10
Average B movie - The Mysterious Mr. Valentine
arthur_tafero1 August 2021
Not as good as Charlie Chan or Bogey, but entertaining for an hour with an interesting plot. Other than that; cliche performances with stereotype roles. Dialogue corny.
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