Mystery Street

Mystery Street (1950) is a crime thriller directed by John Sturges you can watch online on iFILM, starring Ricardo Montalbán as a Barnstable detective whose case starts with bones on a beach. No name, no witness, no obvious lead.

Sturges — still a decade away from The Great Escape and The Magnificent Seven — made this one lean and procedural. Detective Moralas teams with a Harvard forensic scientist, and the film tracks the investigation with an unusual reliance on actual science for its era: skeletal analysis, physical reconstruction of identity, slow-motion logic closing in on a killer. Elsa Lanchester turns in a sharp supporting performance as a landlady who clearly knows more than she admits. Watch Mystery Street online on iFILM.