Wife Wanted *** (1946, Kay Francis, Paul Cavanagh, Robert Shayne, Veda Ann Borg) Classic Movie Review 13,980

Kay Francis stars in her final feature film, the gripping 1946 film noir crime thriller Wife Wanted, as an aging movie star unwittingly drawn into a matrimonial racket and blackmail ring.

Director Phil Karlson’s engrossing 1946 film noir crime thriller Wife Wanted is based on the novel by Robert E Callahan, and stars Kay Francis, Paul Cavanagh, Robert Shayne, and Veda Ann Borg. It is Kay Francis’s final film, going out with a little bang after a busy 17-year career that suddenly petered out.

Newspaper reporter William Tyler (Robert Shayne) saves the aging famous movie actress Carole Raymond (Kay Francis) when she gets accidentally embroiled in her real estate partner Jeff Caldwell (Paul Cavanagh)’s blackmailing plots via his lonelyhearts business scheme. When Carole buys into a real estate plan with Caldwell, what she doesn’t know at first is that he is also running an illegitimate matrimonial service in the very next-door office.

Aging movie star Carole Raymond (Kay Francis) is advised by her agent to make canny investments, and becomes real estate partner of Jeff Caldwell (Paul Cavanagh), who also runs an illegitimate matrimonial bureau, aided by his grasping secretary Nola Reed (Veda Ann Borg) and his greedy, grubby associate Lee Kirby (John Gallaudet), defrauding and blackmailing multiple lonely people.

Carole is unwittingly used as bait to get money from one of their victims, Walter Desmond (Barton Yarborough), who apparently commits suicide but is actually murdered, tipped over the side of the balcony while Carole in in the house. Reporter William Tyler (Robert Shayne) is put on the case, poses as a rich rancher and contacts Carole in an attempt to break the matrimonial racket and break her too.

Caldwell blackmails Carole, forcing her to persuade Tyler to invest in a fraudulent oil deal. Also trying to break the racket, Carole uncovers and tries to help Mildred Hayes (Teala Loring), another innocent victim of the racket who suddenly reappears in her life, while Caldwell is trying to find Mildred and put her out of circulation. Carole and Tyler have both been lying to each other, but finally decide to trust one another and combine forces, and they fall in love.

Dissatisfied with the script, Kay Francis, who was a producer on the film, and Phil Karlson got it re-written. The final script is unusual, effective and engrossing, so the re-write must have worked. It tells a story not quite like any other, twin stories actually, the matrimonial game and the real estate blackmail racket, both intriguing and running parallel successfully. Dressed up to the nines, Kay Francis gives an entertaining, eye-catching old-style star turn, Robert Shayne is just okay and no more, not dashing and spirited enough, while Paul Cavanagh and Veda Ann Borg smoothly steal the show as the villains of the piece.

Director Phil Karlson keeps it brisk and workmanlike, with some encouraging flashes of style and imagination every now and again, particularly pictorially, making up for some rough edges in performance and production. Sometimes it looks strikingly good in its studio noir way.

It was brave of Kay Francis to play an aging movie star who had run out of favour and acting roles, and needed to invest and enjoy her private life instead of act. It was too close to the truth, and proved her last film but she took to the stage. Sadly, on a US theatre tour of the play State of the Union in 1948, she was badly burned by a radiator after passing out from an accidental overdose from pills, then retiring from acting and public life.

It was shot was from mid-June to early July 1946, and released on November 2, 1946 by Monogram Pictures.

Runtime: 73 minutes.

Shadow of Blackmail is the UK title.

Cast: Kay Francis as Carole Raymond, Paul Cavanagh as Jeffrey Caldwell, Robert Shayne as Bill Tyler, Veda Ann Borg as Nola Reed, Teala Loring as Mildred Kayes, Jonathan Hale as Philip Conway, Tim Ryan as Bartender, Barton Yarborough as Walter Desmond, Edgar Hayes, John Gallaudet, Selmer Jackson, Bert Roach, John Hamilton, Anthony Warde, Sara Berner, Will Stanton.

Wife Wanted [Shadow of Blackmail] is directed by Phil Karlson, runs 73 minutes, is made and released by Monogram Pictures, is written by Caryl Coleman and Sidney Sutherland, based on the novel Wife Wanted by Robert E Callahan, is shot in black and white by Harry Neumann, is produced by Kay Francis and Jeffrey Bernerd, and is scored by Edward J Kay.

Gentlemen of the Press (1929) is Kay Francis’s debut.

At the end of the war, Francis signed a three-film contract with Poverty Row studio Monogram Pictures that gave her production credit as well as star billing. The films – Divorce, Allotment Wives and Wife Wanted – had limited releases in 1945 and 1946.

© Derek Winnert 2026 Classic Movie Review 13,980

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