Boring, long, and too preachy.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

"Baby Face" director Alfred E. Green's provocative mystery "Cover-Up" lives up to its title. This deceptively bland movie concerns a homicide in a rural town, and everybody in the town hated the individual who was gunned down in his own home. An outsider who represents a large insurance company arrives, but he doesn't accept the questionable the story that everybody else buys. They believe the victim committed suicide. Nevertheless, the sheriff does his best to shield the real murderer from exposure for the crime. Initially, the hero sticks around to prove his theory about murder rather than the contrived charge of suicide. Eventually, however, the insurance man changes his point of view and adopts the perspective of the sheriff. Meantime, he encounters the girl of his dreams, and they fall in love. "Cover Up" received several negative reviews, but I think that these spectators have misjudged this modest but effective movie. Interestingly enough, one of the two scenarists, Jonathan Rix was actually leading man Dennis O'Keefe. "Highway Dragnet" scribe Jerome Odlum penned this offbeat melodrama that benefits from "Hitler Gang" lenser Ernest Lazlo's atmospheric cinematography.Chain-smoking Insurance Detective Sam Donaldson (Dennis O'Keefe of "Raw Deal") is dispatched by his company to investigate the apparent suicide of a policy holder, Roger Phillips, in a closely-knit small, Mid-western town. Sam discovers many provocative things about this suicide that don't add up and leads him to suspect Phillips didn't commit suicide. Instead, Sam concludes that the suicide was really murder. When the movie opens, we see a train pull into a railway depot and a fashionably attired woman, Anita Weatherby (Barbara Britton of "So Proudly We Hail") gets off it with Christmas packages piled high to her chin. Naturally, Anita cannot hold the load and drops some presents. Gallantly, Sam volunteers to help Anita, and the seeds of romance are sown. Sam is baffled when he learns that Phillips has already been buried; no coroner's report has been filed; and the bullet that killed him is missing. Furthermore, according to the undertaker, the body contained no powder burns from a gun having been discharged at close range. Eventually, cantankerous Marlowe County Sheriff Larry Best (William Bendix of "Detective Story") not only provides Sam with the bullet that he found at the scene of Phillips' death, but also that he states that a Luger was the kind of automatic pistol used to kill Phillips. Meanwhile, Sam's superior at the Insurance agency tells him to get to the bottom of the case. Before long, Sam learns that Anita's father, Stuart Weatherby (Art Baker of "The Beginning or The End"), had given the local town doctor a Luger that he brought back with him from World War I. Mistakenly enough, Sam suspects that Stuart committed the crime. Indeed, Sam has the local newspaper publish a false story to lure Stuart into showing up at the late doctor's house to incriminate himself. Stuart's housekeeper burns the newspaper with the fake article in it and then burns Weatherby's decades old beaver coat handed down to him by his own father. When the dead man was found, the murderer stood over him with a coat dripping with water. Sam believes that a forensic specialist will be able to link the water that dripped off the coat to Stuart's coat, but the housekeeper burns the venerable coat. This doesn't prevent Stuart from taking the bait and falling into Sam's trap. The big resolution scene reveals that Stuart didn't kill the policy holder. Instead, a doctor who died recently from a heart attack but who was held in high regard by the community was responsible for killing the man.William Bendix plays the suspicious sheriff, and we suspect that he may have been responsible for the crime. "Cover up" is a good movie, but it is far from conventional. The idea that a murderer could get away with a crime because his exposure as a murderer would ruin his reputation is an interesting concept.

In this 1949 black and white mystery an insurance investigator (Dennis O'Keefe) comes into a small town for a reported suicide, but according to the sheriff (William Bendix) there is no report, no bullet, no powder burns, and no gun. Enticed to stay by having met a beautiful young woman (Barbara Britton) on the train, he gets embroiled in a mystery.Alan Ladd look-alike Dennis O'Keefe (1908-68) does his usual B-film job, and Barbara Britton (1919-80) is even more beautiful than I remember her from the Mr. and Mrs. North TV series (1952-4). William Bendix (1906-64) is disappointingly very low key. He's known best for the radio and TV "Life of Riley", although personally I thought his best role was a serious one in "Wake Island" (1942).There's a lot of talk about "Double Indemnity" which was a popular 1944 film.The big Oscar winners in 1949 were "Hamlet" (Picture, Actor, Art Direction, Costume Design) and "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (Director, Screenplay, Supporting Actor). The top box office hits were "Samson and Delilah", "Battleground", "Jolson Sings Again", "The Sands of Iwo Jima", and "I Was a Male Order Bride". Other notable films that year were "All the King's Men", "Champion", "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon", "Twelve O'Clock High" and "White Heat".All things considered this is a typical B film with not much to recommend it.

I am no insurance expert, but I thought that in cases where someone killed themselves that their beneficiaries did not receive anything. So why would an insurance investigator, Sam Donovan (Dennis O'Keefe), investigate this in the first place? And, why would he try to prove it was a murder? I think this is a HUGE problem with the plot of "Cover Up"...unless I am mistaken.The story begins with Donovan arriving in town to do his investigation. Surprisingly, most everyone in town either avoids him or lies--and Sam is very tired of it. To make things worse, the Sheriff seems ambivalent when Sam's investigation shows that the man was murdered. If you can ignore the inconsistency of an insurance investigator trying to make his company pay out the biggest claim instead of the smallest, it is an interesting film. Not a great film but interesting and worth seeing despite its flaws.By the way, I wish the film had used a ballistics expert to consult, as the film made a couple mistakes I noticed. First, Sam fires a gun (to get a ballistics comparison of the bullet) and IMMEDIATELY picks up the slug with his bare hands. It would be super-hot--and you'd either want to wait a moment or use gloves. Second, one piece of evidence that Sam has that convinces him the dead guy was murdered was that the killer was left-handed. Well, I am a right hander in everything...but I shoot left. This is not too uncommon, actually, as you often shoot based on your dominant eye not your dominant hand.

***SPOILERS*** This turned out to be a very strange and baffling case for Federated Insurance investigator Sam Donovan, Dennis O'Keefe,to crack. The dead man Mr. Phillips supposedly shot himself with a German luger but the gun bullets as well as death certificate were nowhere to be found! In fact even the dead man's body seemed to have disappeared with the police pathologist and local morgue director having no idea where he went!It becomes very obvious to Donovan that not only was Phillips murdered but the entire town from Sheriff Larry Best, William Bendix,on down were covering up his murder and even more shocking who was Mr. Phillips killer! As it soon turns out Phillips was without a doubt the most disliked person in Cleberg and everyone in town had a motive to kill him but the big question in Donovan's mind is who! It's in fact the luger that killed Phillips that soon appears out of the blue in Stu Weatherby's, Art Baker, house that sets off alarm bells to who exactly murdered Phillips! Found by Weatherby's daughter and Mr.Donovan's now girlfriend Anita, Barbara Britton, it makes it look like her father was in fact Phillips killer with Anita trying to hide the evidence to have him arrested and booked for it.It soon comes out that the luger was in fact in the possession of a Doctor P.L Garrow a good friend of Stu Weatherby who gave it to him as a Christmas present just weeks before Phillips was found shot to death! Dr. Garrow being the most beloved and respected person in Cleberg is the last person anyone could suspect in murdering Phillips,the most hated person in town, but something very strange happens before Donovan could interview him! Dr. Garrow suddenly drops dead of a heart attack which makes his sudden and unexpected death, like that of Phillips suicide, very suspect to say the least!***SPOILERS*** The end of the film ties all the loose ends together with both killer and victim never being seen as much as a second on screen even though they, at least Mr. Phillips, were the most most talked about persons in the movie. What happened to Phillips and who was in fact responsible for his death was kept from seeing the light of day in that by bringing it out in the open it would end up hurting far more people then it would help. And as for Phillips killer he was in no position to face justice in a court of law since he now was far far beyond it!