Footsteps In The Dark

I promised I’d start reviewing some old and classic films. Here is my first shot at it. For my first review of an oldies flick, I was going to do one of the dozens of great, campy SciFi B-movies from the ‘50s. But, I suddenly got the urge to do this seldom seen oldie instead.


FOOTSTEPS IN THE DARK (1941) is a classy comedy/mystery movie starring Errol Flynn, Brenda Marshal, Ralph Bellamy and Alan Hale. This movie is an out of the norm role for Flynn who we are all used to seeing as the swashbuckling hero in such classics as ROBIN HOOD, THE DAWN PATROL, THE SEA HAWK, and on and on. In this one, Flynn plays a high society executive, who has a secret hobby of writing murder mysteries and hanging out with the police attempting to solve cases. To do his investigations, he finds reasons so stay out late at night and sneaks in though the window while his wife (Brenda Marshal) is asleep, then lying about the time he came home. All at once, his book becomes popular, he gets involved in a murder case and his wife gets suspicious. You can guess the fun that follows.

The story is fun, has a good who-done-it to solve and the secondary plot line of how Flynn tries going to stay out of trouble keeps the interest up. It’s all great fun and Flynn does a surprisingly good job in the roll without swords and guns to back him up. Besides, it looks like he’s really having fun.

Alan Hale as the police chief adds to the spice. I just don’t think of a good Errol Flynn film without Alan Hale being in it; well, not many, anyway. (Yes, I'm a Alan Hale fan) All in all, this is a good 96 minutes of entertainment. I caught it on TCM (Turner Classic Movies). It’s also available to buy; or come over and watch it at my house!

I was toying with whether or not I should rate these, but since it's "my opinion" here (as the disclaimers states), why not. I give this a 7 out of 10.