Oiling the gears of detective work in the immemorial manner.
The female lead is simply too annoying in Cloak Without Dagger (1956), the story of a former World War II counter-intelligence agent, now a floor-waiter in a snazzy hotel, and the woman he had loved during the war who stumbles onto him while covering a fashion show. She was snoopy then, and a decade later she’s snoopy now, suggesting that one of the fashion designers staying at his hotel is actually the spy he was chasing back during the war – the investigation she messed up.
Between budding re-romance and an inquisitiveness that just won’t quit, even when breaking into a military installation where they test nuclear powered tanks, she carries the bulk of the story, and thus has many opportunities to be irritating – and doesn’t waste many of them. By the end, even her former boyfriend has used chloroform on her when she stumbles into a tight situation, and I, at least, considered applauding.
You may have guessed the ending, but it’s still a satisfactory, if stereotypical, conclusion to a mystery which was a trifle puzzling, although nothing like The Vicious Circle (1957). The theme no doubt has to do with persistence, whether it’s his or hers, or even the spy’s, although in that case it would be a negative comment on one’s persistent pursuit of wealth, regardless of its source or consequences.
But compelling? No, not really. A bit too fluffy.
