I Wouldn't Be In Your Shoes (1948)

Directed by William Nigh; produced by Walter M Mirisch

Young professional dance duo Tom and Ann Quinn (Don Castle, Elyse Knox) aren’t faring well. Gigs are few and far between: Ann is reduced to giving dance lessons and Tom isn’t working at all. They seemingly hit bottom one night when Tom throws what he doesn’t realise is his only pair of shoes out the apartment window at some noisy cats. Afterward, he can’t find them but they are anonymously returned the next morning. Worse is to come. The shoes are a clue in a murder, and the clue - and others - lead straight to Tom. Awaiting execution, the only hope he has is his wife and the lovesick detective (Regis Toomey) who agrees to help her.

The imaginatively named I Wouldn’t Be In Your Shoes is a production from Monogram Pictures, the most prominent of the addresses on Hollywood’s metaphoric ‘Poverty Row’ of low-budget studios. As in many cases, however, a low budget doesn’t mean a lack of entertainment. While let down by a script with more than the average number of plot-holes, I Wouldn’t Be In Your Shoes is salvaged by engaging performances and some decent scenes.

Castle and Knox, hardly well-known names, even among B movie fans (Knox had a short career, though her son, Mark Harmon, has had a rather longer one), do a good job in their roles as the luckless couple. Castle is especially natural. But it’s Toomey who has the best part, and makes the most of it. This character actor (a veteran of movies even in 1948, having started in film in 1929) has a substantial role, and, though a supporting player, is the most memorable in the cast. Everyone else delivers capable work.

The plot is derived from that gold-mine of film noir sources, Cornell Woolrich, though I suspect in its transfer to the big screen, it lost some of its cohesion. Much of the action will make a viewer wonder why something wasn’t done earlier, especially in the case of the police investigation, which features dedicated cops conducting an inquiry that children could do better. Their views of the evidence range from ‘water-tight’ in one conversation to ‘entirely circumstantial’ in the next. This, of course, is more the fault of the script than the story.

The production values are adequate, though pretty much what one would expect from the cheaper end of the Hollywood spectrum. At one point, for example, a scene is filmed in the interior of a candy shop. Through the open door we see, across the street, a stationery shop. Later, in the movie, we see the same stationer’s business, from the same angle, through the door of a grocery store.

But there are some sequences that redeem much. The interaction of several prisoners on death row (Quinn is referred to as ‘Five’) is surprisingly well-developed, given the amount of time devoted to it, and sympathetic. Another nice touch is a scene in which Ann, numbed by her husband’s imprisonment, is asked by a customer at the dance-studio how she is. When she asks if he really wants to know, he takes a look at her face and slowly answers, “No…” Such moments, lasting, in some instances, seconds, can uplift half a movie.

Though I Wouldn’t Be In Your Shoes shows plenty of evidence of either lazy or bad writing, and suffers somewhat from the small amount of funds devoted to its production, it gives a good indication why numerous films from studios like Monogram had a loyal following in the past and provide pleasant surprises today.