a5c7b9f00b Susan Hart, assistant to private detective Russ Ashton, is given a camera concealed in a hat box and assigned to take a picture of a woman. A gun is accidentally hidden in the box and the woman is killed. Susan is charged with murder, but Russ and his less-than-useful associate, Harvard, get on the case and prove that the fatal shot was fired by the killer from across the street. The Ashton Detective Agency needs money badly, so when Russ Ashton is called away to Washington on a case, secretary Susan Hart takes on an infidelity case where she has to photograph a man&#39;s wifeshe leaves an apartment using a camera disguised in a hat box. Susan doesn&#39;t realize that the camera camouflages a gun, and Mrs. Moreland (the woman) is shot. Ashton returns to find Susan in jail, so he tries to find the man (Stevens) even though he has a vague description. Stevens and his gang find out that Ashton and his sidekick Harvard, are on his trail so he tries to get him out of the way. Ashton then uses Susanbait to trap the killers in order to prevent her from being tried for murder. Decent programmer with an enjoyable foursome of Neal, Blake, Jenkins, and Sale making the film seem like an OTR mystery show. The pacing of the film is great, with a lot going on considering the film&#39;s run time of 44 minutes. The plot is a bit predictable and done before, but the characterizations make it fun. Rating, 7. At UNDER 44 minutes, you wonder if this movie was severely edited down to this length. After all, B-movies ran from 55-65 minutes on average and 44 is amazingly short…too short.<br/><br/>&quot;The Hat Box Mystery&quot; is from Lippert Productions. When I saw that, I knew that the film couldn&#39;t be very goodall the Lippert movies I&#39;ve seen have been simply terrible. Perhaps being short is a blessing!!<br/><br/>Surprisingly, the story does start off very well. During the opening credits, the film suddenly switches to the four leading characters who have broken character! Tom Neal introduces himself and the others and then talks to the audience…and then the credits continue. This is pretty clever. The story that follows isn&#39;t.<br/><br/>Russ (Nea)l and his sidekick, Harvard (Allan Jenkins), run a failing detective agency. When they are out of the office, their dopey secretary takes a case all on her own…an incredibly suspicious case where a man in obvious disguise gives her a camera hidden in a hatbox and instructs her on how to use it to take a picture of his cheating wife. Not surprisingly, he then rigged it up to a gun and when the dopey lady snaps the picture, she appears to shoot the lady in question. Oops. So, it&#39;s up to Russ and Harvard to figure out what really happened.<br/><br/>As I already said, since the production is by Lippert it was practically guaranteed to be sub-par…which it was. Fortunately, being short and having a few good moments, it&#39;s an inoffensive time-passer…albeit a seriously silly one considering the plot and occasionally bad writing.
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