Kid Glove Killer

Fred Zinnemann's feature debut, a neat, unpretentious and really rather enjoyable whodunit about the hunt for the killer of the town's crusading mayor. Obviously developed out of the MGM Crime Does Not Pay featurettes on which Zinnemann served his apprenticeship, it places the accent squarely - but not entirely seriously - on laboratory detection methods: among the gimmicks gleefully demonstrated by Heflin, as the dedicated forensic scientist, is a mini-dustette designed to collect evidence from human scalps. Likeably fresh performances, too, from Heflin, Hunt as his wisecracking assistant who despairs of his ever realising that she's a woman, and Bowman as the blandly suave killer. Ava Gardner has a tiny role as a waitress.