Dangerous Partners *** (1945, James Craig, Signe Hasso, Edmund Gwenn, Audrey Totter, Warner Anderson, Felix Bressart, Mabel Paige, John Warburton, Henry O’Neill, Grant Withers) – Classic Movie Review 13,965

MGM’s 1945 black and white spy mystery thriller film Dangerous Partners stars James Craig, Signe Hasso, Edmund Gwenn, Audrey Totter, Warner Anderson, and Felix Bressart.

Director Edward L Cahn’s 1945 MGM black and white American adventure thriller film Dangerous Partners stars James Craig, Signe Hasso, Edmund Gwenn, Audrey Totter, Warner Anderson, Felix Bressart, Mabel Paige, John Warburton, Henry O’Neill and Grant Withers.

Dangerous Partners is a pacey, complex and entertaining B-movie spy mystery thriller, with a strong screenplay by Marion Parsonnet and Edmund L Hartmann (adaptation), taken from the 1942 suspense novel Paper Chase by Oliver Weld Bayer (aka Eleanor Perry).

Signe Hasso and John Warburton (as married couple Carola and Clyde Ballister) and James Craig (as attorney Jeff Caign) are on the trail of four wills worth $4 million found in injured elderly Albert Richard Kingby (Edmund Gwenn)’s possession following an air crash in the Mexican wilderness.

Unscrupulous married couple Carola and Clyde Ballister (Signe Hasso, John Warburton) are fellow survivors of the plane crash, and they find and open a briefcase handcuffed to the unconscious Kingby containing four wills each leaving $1 million bequests to an Albert Kingby. The Ballisters think in locating the four people in four different cities in the US northeast, they can get that $4 million for themselves.

[Spoiler alert] When the real Kingby finally turns up, he turns out to part of a Nazi group assisting war criminals.

MGM invested even such a minor thriller as this with an excellent cast, a fine cinematographer in Karl Freund and a careful production, and all the good work is up there on screen.

Runtime: 75 minutes.

The film was released by MGM on June 7, 1945.

American radio singer and voice coach to the stars Harriet Lee is the singing voice double for Audrey Totter.

Cast: James Craig as Jeff Caign, Signe Hasso as Carola Ballister, Edmund Gwenn as Albert Richard Kingby, Audrey Totter as Lili Roegan, Mabel Paige as Marie Drumman, John Warburton as Clyde Balliste, Henry O’Neill as Police Lt Duffy, Grant Withers as Jonathan Drumman, Felix Bressart as Professor Roland Ludlow, Warner Anderson as Miles Kempen, Stephen McNally as co-pilot, John Eldredge as Farrel, Sondra Rogers, Harry Hayden, Edward Gargan, Katharine Booth, Wally Cassell, Chester Clute, Eddie Dunn.

Dangerous Partners is directed by Edward L Cahn, runs 75 minutes, is made and released by MGM, is written by Marion Parsonnet and Edmund L Hartmann (adaptation), based on the 1942 novel Paper Chase by Oliver Weld Bayer (aka Eleanor Perry), is shot in black and white by Karl Freund, is produced by Arthur J Field, and is scored by David Snell.

© Derek Winnert 2026 – Classic Movie Review 13,965

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