The first installment of a third-rate detective series, featuring a former safe-cracker, Blackie (Chester Morris), his sidekick the Runt (Charles Wagenheim), and the impatient Inspector Farraday (Richard Lane). Crimes get pinned on Blackie so he has to sort them out. This time he acquires a pretty lady (Rochelle Hudson) when he commandeers her car, and she's almost a match for him. With a modicum of witty repartee, some excellent carnival locations, and an unusual villain (a master spy whose cover is playing a sideshow mechanical man), this one might have ascended from third to second rate, were it not for Morris's acting (mostly a matter of flashing a grin that looks too wide for his face) and his hat (its too-small brim accentuates his big square face and makes him look stupid amongst all the elegant, wide-brimmed hats worn by everybody else, even the weaselly villains).