Black Angel (1946)

When a blackmailing singer is found dead, poor old "Kirk Bennett" (John Phillips) is convicted of her murder. His wife, June Vincent ("Catherine") enlists the help of bar-fly "Blair" (Dan Duryea) who happens to be the ex-husband of the murdered woman and, posing as a pianist and singer, they start to investigate, ending up playing quite a complex game of cat and mouse with the excellently sleazy nightclub owner/petty criminal "Marko" (Peter Lorre). Duryea raises his game with his performance here and the safe pair of hands at the tiller from Roy William Neill keeps this well constructed, if occasionally soggy, crime noir moving along quite well with quite a few interesting twists and trust to keep it unpredictable.