Washington Melodrama (1941)

A nice little drama. Calvin Claymore (Frank Morgan) is a Sentor living in Washington DC. He is trying to push through a bill that will help the people of Europe out financially and is coming up against a lot of resistance. To make matters worse his wife, Elizabeth (Fay Holden), and daughter, Laurie (Ann Rutherford), are in South America for the summer and he is extremely lonely. One night a friend takes him out to a local club run by Whit King (Dan Dailey), a real sleeze ball. While Calvin is there he meets a beautiful young woman named Mary Morgan (Anne Gwynne). They strike up a platonic relationship and spend a lot of time together. Soon Claymore's wife and daughter are due to return from their holiday so Calvin decides to end the relationship. Soon though Mary ends up dead and Whit decides to blackmail Calvin to keep it quiet. However, Claymore does not realize that it is Whit that killed Mary.

I really enjoyed this little mystery. Morgan and Rutherford were both wonderful as the father and daughter team. Dailey was also wickedly great as Whit, the murderer/blackmailer. All in all this was a nice little movie for an afternoon in.