AllMovie

"You know just what she's doin', she's sure to cause you ruin," Herb Jeffries croons over the credits of this mean little crime-melodrama starring Beverly Michaels and Richard Egan. And it is a mean little crime that the bleach blond Michaels is about to commit in the aptly titled Wicked Woman. Michaels, who made a career out of playing hard-boiled dames, is actually quite good as the tough-as-nails Billie Nash, the waitress whose dreams of a Mexican getaway are about to come through. If only she can get rid of her handsome employer's dipsomaniac wife and business partner (Evelyn Scott). At first, Wicked Woman plays like warmed-over James M. Cain and one fully expects Michaels and Egan to bump off the pesky Scott. But Clarence Greene and Russell Rouse's screenplay remains true to its characters. Billie and Matt think small and their crime -- falsifying Mrs. Bannister's signature -- is within the realm of their limited and tawdry lives. Rouse, who reportedly was dating Michaels at the time, also directed with a sure sense for detail and Wicked Woman contains much to admire, from a title character mostly interested in smoking, drinking, and reading astrology magazines to a cast of supporting characters that never betray their origins. Percy Helton turns his pathetic runt of a neighbor into a rather sinister lecher, who is not above dabbling in a bit of blackmail to satisfy his libido. Scott offers a sympathetic view of a woman who can find solace from a misbegotten life only in a bottle. Old-timer Bernadene Hayes saunters in and out of the film as a harried landlady ("I run a respectable place!") and sundry barflies add verisimilitude to Wicked Woman's main set, the Bannisters' neighborhood saloon.