A Dangerous Profession Reviews

Somewhat anachronistic film that would have been more suited to 1939 than 1949. Raft passes his usual criminal mantle onto others and checks in as an ex-cop, now a bail bondsman. Before the action starts, he has trifled with Raines and fallen in love with her. Now she confesses that she's married to Williams, who has been jailed for embezzlement. Can Raft provide the necessary bond money to get him out? Raines and Williams were separated when she waltzed with Raft, but now she wants to make her marriage work and appeals to Raft as a friend. Raft's partner, O'Brien, thinks it's a dumb deal, but Raft insists that they put up the money. Williams wakes up dead and Raft is livid. Now he seeks out the killers and in so doing crosses paths with Backus, a tough local detective hard on the case. They attempted to make this a semi-documentary about a business that most people don't know about or ever want to know about. Even the kindhearted and generally tolerant O'Brien thought this, his last film for RKO, "a dog." It failed to excite interest at the box office. Winters also played Charlie Chan in a few films, but is acknowledged as the least effective of all the Chan portrayers, with the possible exception of Ross Martin.