An American remake of Robert Siodmak’s French drama PERSONAL COLUMN (1939), Douglas Sirk’s London-set monochromatic whodunit LURED, sees Lucille Ball’s down-to-earth American gal Sandra Carpenter lures not only a well-heeled hubby in the person of the silk-stocking impresario Robert Fleming (Sanders), but also the notorious “Poet Killer” who entices his (young and wide-eyed female) victims through personal ads on newspaper and sends poems to taunt the clueless Scotland Yard. Only, there is one catch, could both her quarries be the same person?
Sandra is recruited by chief inspector Harley Temple (Coburn) as an amateur sleuth (the fancy term for “the bait”) after her friend Lucy Barnard (Chandler) disappears and presumably is the latest victim of the killer, it doesn’t take a minute for a good-spirited Sandra to accept the dicey offer, career-wise, considering her current “taxi girl” vocation, this comes as an advancement.
For most of the time, LURED keeps the macabre nature of murder at bay, punctuating Sandra and Robert’s casual courtship and destined romance with slightly startling red herrings, as she replies to all the pertinent personal ads looking for a girl of tender age, Boris Karloff as an unhinged fashion designer Charles van Druten is a good one, a girl just cannot say no to haute couture, but a concert appointment with a no-show music lover less so.
After the police successfully thwarts a criminal ring smuggling young girls to South America thanks to Sandra’s involvement, but not before Robert saving her life from the malevolent Mr. Moryani (Calleia) à la the knight in shining armor, Sandra thinks the case is closed and she is going to tie the knot with Robert. But Harley suspects the erudite killer is still at large, which is corroborated by another letter indicating Sandra is his next victim.
At that point of the plot, the identity of the real murderer has already been disclosed when Robert’s business partner Julian Wilde (Hardwicke) discovers Sandra’s undercover activity. A scapegoat is conveniently set up and the disintegration of the intending husband and wife takes its toll on both parties, until a final sting successfully catches the culprit in flagrante delicto, which again has to put Sandra’s own safety on the line.
When opposing a nonchalant and vainglorious George Sanders, Lucille Ball, with her trademark “perpetually surprised eyebrows”, makes for a good sport hobnobbing with the posh and elegant paraphernalia, but also manifests ostensible moxie and gumption when Sandra is innocuously stuck in harm’s way. Whereas George Zucco, as officer Barrett, aka. Sandra’s designated bodyguard, is a surprising godsend with his double-take reactions of the crosswords he plays, it is Sir Cedric Hardwicke who brilliantly holds fast an unruffled presence-of-mind, even when there is no suspense left in the game, and channels this facetious, feel-good potboiler safely in its homestretch until the end.
referential entries: Sirk’s IMITATION OF LIFE (1959, 7.9/10); Max Ophüls’ CAUGHT (1949, 7.7/10).
