The plot of this film is pretty original, as there aren't that many films about arson and the insurance industry. And up through about the first half of the film, it's pretty good and held my interest. Unfortunately, it really looks as if this B-movie was rushed into production before all the logical kinks were worked out, as suddenly characters began behaving stupidly and inconsistently. That's when, out of the blue, an argument occurs between the lead investigator (Edmund Lowe) and his assistant. The intensity of this confrontation and why just made no sense at all--one minute they are friends and the next they are ready to kill each other just because the lead investigator logically concluded that their lady friend was lying (which she clearly had been doing throughout the film). From this point on, the logic of their actions and how Lowe came to unravel the truth just made no sense at all. It was if Lowe had read the script to see the ending of the movie in order to unravel the mystery. All this is really a shame, as the film had some promise. As it is, it's at best a time-passer. Just don't try to think through the logic of this one!

Dashing Edmund Lowe plays insurance investigator Tom Fletcher who is hot on the trail of an arsonist. He is helped by his dedicated assistant John Grayson (Onslow Stevens) even though they both suspect each other eventually. Of course they are harassed by authority figures played by great character actors including Edward Van Sloan as the curmudgeonly board of directors and Robert Middlemass as Fire Chief Mulligan. Because Fletcher always demands a huge fee for his services, he finds himself one of the suspects in this latest rash of deliberate fires. A surprise plot-twist puts Fletcher and heroine/suspect Adrienne Martin (Ann Sothern) on the scent of the real firebug. This modest Columbia production was distinguished by several spectacular and real fire scenes that probably came from newsreel footage, all of which quickly found their way into the studio's stock-footage files. Good, tough dialogue and nice pacing by director Kenton.

ANN SOTHERN and EDMUND LOWE were teamed earlier in a romantic comedy, but this time it's a suspenseful little programmer about tracking down an arsonist. It's a clever story with some brisk dialog that keeps things going merrily along while the chase for the arsonist consumes most of the plot.

Lowe is a former tracker of arson fires who is re-hired when a series of fires puts the city out of control in trying to curb the serial man determined to burn down various factories. Lowe suspects it might be ONSLOW STEVENS, while Stevens in turn suspects Lowe of setting the fires in order to get his old job back. Then too, suspicion is firmly planted on ANN SOTHERN when she turns up at every fire and turns out to have an assumed name in order to cover a very valuable clue.

It's dated, of course, but fun to watch with a puzzling mystery at the center of things. Lowe and Sothern work well together and Stevens does well in an interesting supporting role.