Tuesday's Overlooked Movies: The 49th Man Starring John Ireland

This 1953 espionage drama is a fun and watchable movie. Where else can you see Peter "Hollywood Squares" Marshall play a gun-toting, nasty bad guy? I'm a big fan of John Ireland who plays the U.S. agent who is charged with tracking down nuclear devices getting smuggled into the U.S. Richard Denning plays his square-jawed boss who is just as determined as Ireland is to stop the bad guys from building of a nuclear bomb to be detonated in a big U.S. city. Their investigation eventually leads Ireland to France where he runs into Marshall and his wife played by Suzanne Dalbert who are "working" in a jazz band. There are a couple of neat twists dropped in as the film closes in San Francisco. Good to see Mike (credited as "Touch") Connors in an early, small role. It isn't a great film, but still offered enough action to hold my attention until the end.