Sat 24 Dec 2022
EXPOSED. Republic Pictures, 1947. Adele Mara (Belinda Prentice), Robert Scott, Lorna Gray, Adrian Booth, Robert Armstrong, William Haade, Bob Steele, Harry Shannon. Director: George Blair.
It’s possible, depending on definitions, that this is the first movie in which a female private eye is the leading character. You may be thinking right away about Torchy Blane and the movies she was in, and I wouldn’t blame you, but she was a newspaper reporter with a good eye for crimes and who committed them, but no, she wasn’t a PI.
Adele Mara is the PI in this one, a brash young lady named Belinda Prentice, but while she tries hard, she doesn’t have the patter that a good wisecracking PI needs in the movies (blame the writers). Not only that, but the fact that she needs a lovable lunk of an assistant named Iggy (William Haade) to get her out of scrapes is another strike against her.
Noting that her father is the chief of homicide (played to perfection by Robert Armstrong), we can only agree that as an independent operator, Miss Prentice is pretty much a minor leaguer.
It doesn’t help that the case she’s hired to work on (that of a father wanting to know why his son is taking so much money out of their firm’s account) is so muddled, even when it turns into a case of murder as so many cases such as this invariably do. Watch this and see if I’m not right. Muddled. And even so, there are too many scenes of people walking from one place to another, as well as automobiles driving in or off somewhere, as if they were a new invention.
One scene does stand out, though, that of Iggy and Bob Steele’s character (a hood by the name of Chicago) having a smack ’em up, knock ’em down fight that’s well worth the price of admission (free on YouTube).

December 24th, 2022 at 1:12 am
Merry Christmas, kid, and Bob Steele is almost a Christmas present all by himself.
December 24th, 2022 at 11:11 am
Bob Steele, one of my favorite B-western cowboys, always seemed to me to be a five foot five stack of dynamite with the fuse already burning. He truly glowered with a vengeance. And Merry Christmas to you, Barry!
December 24th, 2022 at 1:49 pm
Thank you for telling us about this.
I’d never heard of this.
Director George Blair did the excellent JASON episode of Wanted Dead or Alive.
December 24th, 2022 at 5:43 pm
In broad detail the premise of this movie sounds an awful lot like the premise to the Carrie Cashin stories that appeared in Crime Busters magazine in the late 30 and 40. Carrie was the brains and her male partner that brawn and occasionally the front man as well. In one early story Carrie pretty much carried the whole story including a rather vicious fight with a villain. In later stories she was relegated to more of a supporting role.
December 24th, 2022 at 7:18 pm
There certainly could be a connection, beb, but when I called Iggy a lovable lunk, I meant it. It would be quite a stretch to think of him as a front man, but if this movie had continued on as a series, I’m willing to wager they might have given it a try.
December 24th, 2022 at 6:17 pm
Lorna Gray, AKA Adrian Booth?
December 24th, 2022 at 7:20 pm
Yes, and oops. They shouldn’t both be in the cast listing. One and the same, Jim.
December 24th, 2022 at 11:23 pm
Worth seeing Mara in anything, but I don’t think she’s the first female eye, that would be Jane Wyman as Myrna “Jynx” Winslow in 1939’s PRIVATE DETECTIVE where she works against her police boyfriend Dick Foran to solve a case. She was also Sam (Humphrey) Campbell’s girl Friday assistant (not secretary) in in 1944’s CRIME BY NIGHT based on Geoffrey Homes novel.
So it looks like Wyman (who ironically also did one Torchie Blane film) by two heads in a leading role unless there are some early examples.
December 24th, 2022 at 11:35 pm
And all things considered, there very well may be. But whether yes or no, these are two fine candidates, neither of which I knew about before. Thanks, David!
December 25th, 2022 at 2:59 am
I may have an earlier one, though not the star, Ann Sothern in Tay Garnett’s TRADE WINDS where she has to keep dumb cop Ralph Bellamy out of private eye Frederic March’s hair while they both pursue fugitive murderess Joan Bennett to the tropics.
I’m pretty sure Sothern is an operative in that one which would predate Wyman by at least three years.
December 25th, 2022 at 1:34 pm
TRADE WINDS sounds familiar, but not enough so to recall any details. Will have to track this one down too!
December 25th, 2022 at 6:39 pm
Trade Winds is definitive in Joan Bennett’s career; she went from a natural blonde to dark hair.
December 25th, 2022 at 7:17 pm
Ah, yes. That’s the one. Thanks, Barry!
December 25th, 2022 at 10:24 pm
Steve,
I’m pretty sure I reviewed TRADE WINDS on here back in the day.
December 25th, 2022 at 11:22 pm
I thought I remembered that too, but I couldn’t find it until now. It wasn’t a review of the movie, but it came up in a double feature you did of a couple of Cary Grant films:
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=74467
plus some additional coverage in the comments that followed.
December 26th, 2022 at 7:52 pm
Hi! How are All of You after Christmas? Merry belated Christmas to You All, It has been a while that I did not come here, a couple of weeks a go I wanted to come, but sometimes life is very challenging, it is an adventure, because I miss this blog, I have been following politics from a Christian Conservative point of view and the society is getting more insane a dystopian very fast every day, but I will mixed it up coming over here for an escape for my sanity. Concerning about Trade Winds by Tay Garnett,(I am very sorry that I am sharing a link to another reviewer, I hope and pray You will not all be upset) but Laura at Musings reviewed that movie way back when in 2011, already 12 years ago, I remember reading that review, time flies, in that movie, both of the Actress are veyr good, but from Laura’s point of view, it is Ralph Bellamy who steal the show, being unnaturally funny and aplomb and awesome. So here is the link of Laura’s Review http://laurasmiscmusings.blogspot.com/2011/05/tonights-movie-trade-winds-1938.html
I always like Her reviews, but the only annoying knack about Her is the Women Actresses, it seems for Her, They can not do anything wrong. But anyway I digress. Thank You for reading all this. Take good care all of You and be safe and take good care of Your Health and keep the Love and God Bless or God Speed. Love You All. From Eastern Canada in a small town of Edmundston, New Brunswick, Canada, from my home it only takes two minutes and we are in the USA.
December 28th, 2022 at 1:30 am
Serge
My son in California almost met Laura once, but when Covid came along, that put an end to meet-ups at movie events and the like. Her blog is always a delight.
And please, always, stop by again, whenever you can.
December 29th, 2022 at 10:26 pm
[…] my recent review of the 1947 film Exposed, I suggested that private detective Belinda Prentice (played quite capably […]