Female on the Beach

Plot

Lynn Markham (Crawford) visits a beach house that once belonged to her dead husband. There, she meets real estate agent Amy Rawlinson (Jan Sterling) and Drummond "Drummy" Hall (Chandler), an attractive beach bum who wanders in and out of the house as though he owned it.

Lynn learns the house was once rented to Eloise Crandall (Judith Evelyn), an older woman whose cause of death (suicide, accident, or murder) remains undetermined. Lynn later discovers "Drummy" is the accomplice of card sharps Osgood and Queenie Sorenson (Cecil Kellaway and Natalie Schafer), and that he heartlessly pursued Crandall in order to set her up for card games with the Sorensons. Lynn's physical attraction to Drummy is overpowering and she marries him. Events on their honeymoon lead Lynn to believe he murdered Eloise. It transpires, however, that Amy Rawlinson killed Crandall because she wanted Drummy for herself.

Cast

Production

The script was based on an unproduced play.

Critical response

A review in Harrison's Reports said that the movie offered "a fairly interesting though somewhat seamy mixture of sex, murder and suspense."

Film critic Bosley Crowther gave the film a mixed review, writing, "Their progress is rendered no more fetching by the inanities of a hackneyed script and the artificiality and pretentiousness of Miss Crawford's acting style. At the end, the guilty party is revealed in a ridiculous way. Jan Sterling, Cecil Kellaway and Natalie Schafer are the supporting players you may remotely suspect."