Special Agent ** (1949, William Eythe, Kasey Rogers, George Reeves, Paul Valentine) – Classic Movie Review 11,265

Director William C Thomas’s standard issue 1949 black and white thriller Special Agent stars William Eythe as Railway Special Agent Johnny Douglas, who battles train payroll sibling thieves Paul and Edmond Devereaux (George Reeves, Paul Valentine), with the help of Lucille Peters (Laura Elliott, aka Kasey Rogers), daughter of the murdered train engineer in the robbery.

Special Agent is an adequately entertaining and fast-moving, if rudimentary crime filler, with a taut screenplay by Lewis R Foster and Whitman Chambers taken from a screen story by Milton Raison based on a true story.

The acting is plain and the story seems to be made hastily concocted from conveyer-belt ingredients, but the film has energy and basic Forties B-movie appeal.

Also in the cast are Tom Powers, Carole Mathews, Frank Puglia, Jeff York, Virginia Christine, Walter Baldwin, Robert Williams, Raymond Bond, Joseph Granby, Morgan Farley, John Hilton, Peter Miles, Jimmy Hunt, Arthur Stone, James Griffith, Paul Harvey and Thomas Browne Henry.

It launched the career of Kasey Rogers (1925–2006), who was spotted by a talent scout, auditioned at Paramount, was screen tested and landed a star role in Special Agent within a week. Paramount changed her name to Laura Elliott but she went back to Kasey Rogers on leaving the studio. She is memorable as Guy (Farley Granger)’s estranged wife strangled by Bruno (Robert Walker) in Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train (1951).

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,265

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Kasey Rogers (1925–2006).