Dangerous Intruder

Confession time. I don't know how many times I have seen Veda Ann Borg in a film - many - and I always thought she was married to the head of a poverty row studio and had been an ice skater. I never took her seriously. Turns out I had her mixed up with Vera Hruba Ralston.

Borg stars here in "Dangerous Intruder" from 1945, a B movie. She plays Jenny, an actress who, stranded when a show closes, has to hitchhike. A driver knocks her over taking a hairpin turn, and she is injured. The driver, Curtis (Tom Keene) takes her back to his family home to recover.

It turns out that he recognizes her from a show, and at the time, sent her flowers and asked her out. Jenny meets the other members of the family - a child, Jackie (Jo Ann Marlowe), the frail woman of the house (Fay Helm) and her husbandMax (Charles Arndt).

Jenny recuperates at the house for two weeks, and for the most part, they are a warm and welcoming family. She learns some background - they have money now, but that's only because an aunt died a few years earlier from a fall down the stairs.

One night, Max takes Jenny into a room to see his valuable collection of antiques. She notices he's a little too passionate about them, to the point of making her uncomfortable. Then, when he's accidentally knocked out in her presence, he starts hallucinating. It's then she becomes really worried. He's threatening somebody and talking about a flight of stairs.

Her fears are only exacerbated when Max's wife, Millicent, dies. Jenny is sure Max had something to do with it, but she can't convince Curtis to believe her.

This film runs about an hour and is actually pretty good. It's a mystery, but it almost comes off like a haunted house story. Veda Ann Borg is believable, and JoAnn Marlowe, who played Kay in Mildred Pierce, is very good. Charles Arnt, who played Max, does a fine job of balancing calmness and passion.