Let's be realistic.

Just perfect...

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

After a woman (Clyde) flees from an apartment following a series of shots, she car-jacks a passing motorist (Chandler) in order to escape and the two eventually become embroiled in a murder mystery (and a budding romance) they must solve to avoid suspicion.Throughout their enquiries a number of potential leads emerge, Gaye plays a quirky crime-scene photographer who collects ghoulish photographs of real-life murderers and serial killers, while Casey MacGregor looks a likely suspect as the brawny, silent gardener infatuated by Rebel Randall's vivacious vixen, a high society gal with champagne tastes on a beer budget (and who bears a striking resemblance to Paulette Goddard or Hedy Lamarr).Predictably, the sleuths manage to out-pace the clueless detective (Raffetto), closing the case in record time (61 minutes, in fact, Chandler solves the mystery in 50 minutes), and not a moment too soon as far as I was concerned. Lightweight and lacking suspense, it's not a howler, just an average B-picture mystery displaying little originality or excitement.

So let's see, there were the photographer, the furrier, the deranged knife dealer, and the perfume shop lady. I don't know if gardener Tim actually qualified to be a store owner, so that leaves the story a few people short on the 'Seven Doors' theme. I guess you could make a case for Mary Rawling, but then again, she was in line to inherit the entire Hamilton mini-mall where those store fronts were, and not an actual business person. So chalk up the title to a bit of poetic license, the more doors to death the merrier I guess.Boy, you really have to pay attention to what's going on here, and even with that, it's a hard story to follow. There's some business about an Egyptian hope chest and missing jewelry thrown in, and I'm not sure how it all ties together with the body in the basement. Oh yeah, and they went to a lot of trouble to have the actual murderer remove the victim's thumb prints by peeling off the skin from his fingers. This was more elaborate than Charlie Chan ever had to deal with, but I'm sure he would have solved the crime as well. Actually, he had a fingerprint mystery too, but it was a lot easier to follow (1946 - "Dark Alibi").Catch this one for the odd dance routine in the middle of the story by the perfume lady, Mable De Rose. I had never heard of the performer portraying the character, an actress by the name of Rebel Randall. A quick check of her IMDb credits shows that she's still alive and approaching ninety! Goes to show you how tough you had to be to make this flick!

Any movie with Rebel Randall is a must movie (that's her on the jacket of the Alpha DVD) and in this one she not only has a really sizable part for once but even gets to do a buzz of sizzling dance steps! By contrast, the nominal heroine, June Clyde, is almost a nothing. I saw the movie only an hour ago and already I've forgotten all her scenes except the opening in which she jumps on to the running board of Chick Chandler's jalopy, (a roadster named "Genevieve", would you believe?).Mr Chick Chandler himself is hardly chic, nor would he rate on a ten thousand names list of the most charismatic guys in the movie world, but at least I can remember what he looks like.As for the rest of the players, poor old George Meeker, typecast as usual, tries his best to look nasty, but Edgar Dearing has abandoned his policeman's motorcycle for this one and looks out of place as a shopkeeper.Director Elmer Clifton, with the able assistance of his cameraman, has arranged some dark and half-spooky atmospheric effects, but his efforts are sunk — partly by his own script and partly by his shoe-string budget.

Low budget mystery. A shot rattles out of the dark and a woman is seen running from that direction. A young architect Jimmy McMillan(Chick Chandler)discovers a dead body that goes missing. The woman in a hurry, Mary(June Clyde), is linked to the death scene; but it is McMillan that has to try and solve the case to avoid serious suspicion. Suspects are six shop owners in the vicinity of the crime scene. All the atmosphere of Film-Noir; but not quite the real thing. This flick musters just enough to be a decent low budget mystery/drama and is a nice little escape. Other players include: George Meeker, Michael Raffetto, Milton Wallace and Rebel Randall.