Cage of Evil

The photo is from Cage of Evil, directed by Edward L. Cahn, starring Ronald Foster and Pat Blair. That's really just about the best take I could find of Pat Blair...which says something about the directing and over all quality of the picture. I think she was more impressive in this more familiar role:

In this film noir, Blair plays the strong, criminally connected female. Her greed becomes the millstone that drags the decent but flawed detective to his doom beneath the sordid sea of lies, robbery, and murder. On a scale of one to ten, the film ranks as a solid disappointment. At just over an hour long, the story is fairly bare-bones; it felt rushed and incomplete. The characters possessed all the depth of...well...something really thin...without a lot of depth...like drawn-on eyebrows. The writing kept the characters and the story confined to the wading pool. Shallow. That's the word that comes to mind. It's as shallow as a cookie sheet, or that guy at work who can only talk about his new tattoo.

The initial set up reminds me of the beginning of one of my favorite films, Double Indemnity; except in this film it's the police captain, the poor corrupted detective's boss, who does the narration rather than the unfortunate protagonist himself. The directing includes plenty of unremarkable shadows. I don't remember any great classic noir shots of semi-darkened stairways, or seedy streets with lighting that captures the fleeing protagonist's silhouette. However, I did find this guy playing a minor role:

I think his most famous roles have him on a golf course or in a newsroom.

I chose to watch Cage of Evil because the plot synopsis mentioned diamonds. Diamonds play a significant role in my noir novel; I wanted to see what this movie did with them. These diamonds are uncut; my diamonds are stolen Nazi treasure. My protagonist at one point observes:
“I can’t argue with a diamond,” I said. Technically, it was true. I couldn’t argue with a diamond any more than I could argue with a dead man. Both tended to rely on the single assertion of their being, or not being…to which there was no rebuttal.