Police Captain Haines(Moroni Olsen)is fed up with the public's lack of approval on the way a crime epidemic is being handled. He orders his men to clear up their investigations without violating the constitutional rights of the arrested criminals. This will please the newly appointed head of the Police Department Lab and internal affairs. Detective Jim Logan(Bruce Cabot)is of the old school opinion...a little pushing and thumping is OK in making an arrest. Haines is forced to demote him, but Logan doesn't really care. He discovers that some local junk dealers are enabling crime bosses in the accumulation of scrap metal to send to foreign powers(not clearly identified) to manufacture munitions in aiding their war efforts.After this movie, Miss Hayworth will be on her way to major stardom. At times Cabot seems one-dimensional and pedestrian to the script. Other players include: Marc Lawrence, Norman Willis, Richard Fiske and Stanley Andrews.

Homicide Bureau (1939) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Fun and fast paced Columbia 'B' film has Bruce Cabot playing a homicide detective who wants to use force to get confessions from some gangsters trying to take the city over. If you're a fan of 'B' films then you should get a kick out of this one since there's never a dull moment within its 57-minute running time. There's plenty of fast action as well as a nice shoot out at the end that makes this one a tad bit better than most in its field. Cabot is always worth watching and he does a nice job here. Rita Hayworth has a small supporting role as a forensic expert.

With the US just about to enter the war, Hollywood started to bend toward the mission. This is a rather interesting and peculiar case.Its an ordinary police procedural, with a tough cop, someone who yearns for what in movieland was "the good old days" when he could just beat crooks up. But the world is different now, presumably because the characters have to rise to the moral challenge. That's the first striking change we see.But there are two others, and the way they are spliced in makes it easy to imagine the script planning discussions.Early in the war, planners thought it would be short and determined by the ability to manufacture things fast. Since the pipeline for steel was longer than they thought the war would last, and had other problems, the idea was to call in the nation's scrap. So this plot has evil profiteers diverting scrap to enemies. This plot point is screwed a bit when we learn there is more deadly cargo included, but I suppose they thought it sufficient to just mention scrap and its importance.The other change is the movement of women into men's jobs. In this story there's a completely inessential line about Rita Hayworth taking over the job of chief forensic scientist and proving her mettle. Naturally, she still is a romantic interest who gets won by the tough cop.Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

One thing that surprised me in this film was the amount of scientific documentation it exhibits. A female scientist is assigned to the police department in a forensics position. I was also surprised at how little controversy was shown about that fact. But during the course of the movie, comparison of materials (from a single source or not), ballistics evidence, weapon edge evidence and more are all showcased. Not quite a commercial for police as scientific marvels, seeing as how another part of the main story involves whether or not police ought to be able to rough up criminals or not, but considering how far before the Miranda ruling this movie was made, it now comes across as an interesting look at the state of forensics in the late 1930s. For true devotees of The New Detectives (and maybe CSI, though it has little to do with crime scenes per se), this is certainly an interesting title.