• Produced and directed by William Berke
• Written by Dwight Babcock and Richard H. Landau
• Starring
  • Cesar Romero
  • George Brent
  • Audrey Totter
  • Tom Drake
  • Raymond Burr

Halfway between a police procedural and a recruiting piece for the upright Federal Bureau of Investigations, F.B.I. Girl invokes a curious reversal of the rule articulated by Rick Moranis in Spaceballs (1987). In this case, it’s good that will triumph because evil is dumb.

In the capitol city of an unnamed state — in fact, the city’s name is Capitol City (and we find out later that it’s in Capitol County, too) — Gov. Grimsby (Raymond Greenleaf) publicly welcomes the attention of and FBI crime probe into state government. Privately, though, the investigation has him panicked, not only because of his connection to organized crime, but because under his real name of John Williams he’s wanted for murder. And his fingerprints, gathered routinely during the probe, will unmask him.

One of these men is a career politician. One is a career thug. They’re wearing identical shades of gray. Coincidence? I THINK NOT!

This is the first of what will be several WTF moments. Who in their right mind would run for governor when they’re living under an alias, wanted for a capitol crime? I’ll acknowledge that Grimsby/Williams got away with it for a good long time, long enough to be in office for twenty years, but still, he seems like too intelligent a fellow to paint that kind of bull’s eye on himself while trying to evade a murder rap.

Blake (Raymond Burr), the representative of organized crime interests, is confident he can take care of it. He knows a guy, see… In fact, he knows a guy named Paul (Don Garner) whose sister Natalie (Margia Dean) works in the fingerprinting department at the FBI. (In case you’re wondering, “Capitol City” is not a stand-in for Washington, D.C.; the two cities are separated by a plane ride.) Blake leans on Paul, Paul pleads with Natalie, and Natalie agrees to filch the fingerprint card for John Williams from the FBI files.

Of course, in the days before computers, the FBI files were just that: thousands of filing cabinets in a huge room, overseen by young non-agents like Natalie. One of them, Donald (Richard Monahan), bumps into Natalie just as she has removed the Williams card from the file, causing her to drop it in with his. No, there’s no identity mix-up (nor does he get his chocolate in her peanut butter), but he does note both the name on her card and her lack of an authorization form.

Whenever you’re going to commit a felony and possibly treason, always wear your va-va-voomiest blouse.

That night, Natalie drives to the rendezvous point, only to be run off the road by Blake and his right-hand goon Denning (Alexander Pope — not the poet, one assumes). Their plan is to remove the witness, but they can’t keep from adding a couple scoops of WTF to the mix. Natalie is killed in the crash, and Denning searches the car for the fingerprint card, which isn’t there (apparently, she got cold feet and put it back). Instead, not only does he toss her handbag and then toss her handbag, signaling to investigators that this wasn’t a blameless accident, but he leaves his fingerprints all over the bag and vehicle. Given that the whole caper revolves around recovering some fingerprints, you’d think someone would be smart enough to say, “Hm… fingerprints… say, fingerprints! Better wear some gloves, Denning!”

Because Natalie was an FBI employee who died under mysterious circumstances, local jurisdiction instantly gives way to the Bureau — specifically, to Special Agents Stedman (Cesar Romero) and Donley (George Brent). These, at last, are our protagonists, and they fit a police procedural pattern that has endured from the original radio version of Dragnet (begun in 1951, coincidentally) through several incarnations of Law & Order: the law enforcement heroes who are so defined by their cop status that they are practically personality-free. Seriously, these guys are so blank that their names aren’t even mentioned for another twenty minutes or so. Even with Romero’s narration (and it’s just in this scene that we realize that what we’ve been hearing fitfully isn’t omniscient narration, it’s Romero in character), you’ve got absolutely no idea who these guys are, except that they are extremely competent.

“Left? That way. Why do you ask?”

Which makes a nice counterpoint to the bad guys. You normally don’t see this many bad decisions made in a criminal enterprise that aren’t meant for comedic effect, but Blake is a deadly serious heavy. He’s just not thinking things through. So while the agents are doing everything very well by the book, interviewing her co-workers and roommates, and running the prints that lead them back to Denning — to bad guys keep trying to minimize their information leak, with bad results. The FBI plasters Denning’s face all over post offices and air waves; when Denning discovers that the bellhop at his hotel is calling him in, Denning knifes him — just to make sure that the FBI concentrate their efforts there, instead of treating it as one of a number of possible sightings. Denning then tries to knife Paul in his apartment, but it’s under FBI guard, and Paul is left wounded. Then Denning tries to finish the job off in Paul hospital room (disguised as a priest), but it’s a set-up — that’s Stedman in the bed instead of Paul, and in the ensuing chase, Denning plummets from a building ledge to the sidewalk.

Without an incompetent henchman to fall back on, Blake has to bring his own incompetence to the table. He has the Governor’s fingerprints substituted for those of a homeless corpse to be sent in to FBI headquarters; he assumes that that will close the file on “John Williams.” Unfortunately for them, Donald — remember that other file clerk who bumped into Natalie? — had remembered and told the investigating agents the name on the form. They were unable to narrow down the John Williams in question — there are 10,000 files by that name, we’re told — but with this death report coming in that coincidentally lists the same name, they not only know which prints are attracting so much interest, but they also know that the interest is being generated in Capitol City, since the bogus prints came via the Capitol County coroner. Way to go, Blake.

“You’re right, the rear-screen projection is a lot more convincing from up here!”

But there’s one more twist in this. Natalie’s roommate Shirley (Audrey Totter), also her co-worker in the fingerprint department, just happens to be engaged to the Carl (Tom Drake), who’s a lobbyist in Washington for Capitol City and its unnamed state. (Ain’t it convenient how everybody knows everybody?) Blake leans on Carl to lean on Shirley to once again steal the fingerprint card; but realizing there’s a Capitol City connection, the FBI agents have already gotten to Shirley to forewarn her.

It’s not every movie in which the police are one step ahead of the criminals, is it?

As befits a movie with scant characterization of its leads, this one moves along at a fair clip to keep the viewer from regretting the absence of personality. In fact, it moves quick enough that the audience doesn’t have a chance to get ahead of the FBI agents and wait for them to catch up. What little filler there is — a TV comedy routine, as Agent Stedman is hanging out with Shirley’s roommates, waiting for her to get home — is actually pretty good. (One of the roommates is the beauteous pinup Joi Lansing, who doesn’t have two whole lines, but who’s noticing?)

“Do, I DON’T think you’re funny!” (Hey, I had to work a Joker reference in somewhere…)

As a main feature, F.B.I. Girl is too cheap and too thin to be satisfying. But as a B-feature, it’s a nice little surprise with surprising competence and intelligence — at least on the part of the good guys.

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 6
• breasts: 0
• explosions: 0
• ominous thunderstorms: 0
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 0