blanche-2
The Maisie movies, starring Ann Sothern, were B films, light fun, enlivened by their effervescent star. This is the last one. Though a series, each film was separate. Maisie would fall in love with one guy and in the next film, he'd be gone. She worked a variety of jobs, sometimes getting work as a performer.Here, Maisie volunteers herself to an older woman who is driving her husband's car to California. Maisie offers to help with the driving. When she goes into the store, the woman, a con artist, takes off, taking Maisie's money and jewels with her. The next time we see Maisie, she is blowing her stack at a police detective (Barry Nelson) who is very impressed with her powers of observation. He offers her a job on the police force, and after some training, she goes undercover.Actually, I thought this was pretty good, even though Maisie wasn't suspicious enough of some people she met along the way. Ann Sothern is terrific as always, full of energy and flirtatiousness, and an upbeat attitude. In this film, her character is described as 25; try 37. And I give her a lot of credit. She played a much younger woman in her two television series, when she was well into her forties.Barry Nelson looked for years like he had a portrait aging in his closet - it was always hard to believe he was in these early films, as he remained youthful for many years. Here he sports a mustache, probably because at 30, he looked 20. His main career was on Broadway, where he was very prolific and worked into his '70s. And few remember that he was the first James Bond, on television."Undercover Maisie" moves quickly and is entertaining.
bkoganbing
The Maisie series came to an end with Undercover Maisie and strictly on a minor key. In this last film, Ann Sothern joins the police force and without proper training gets into a dangerous situation.Barry Nelson who plays her immediate supervisor figures that Sothern being from Brooklyn has street smarts and can deal with trying to catch some con artists so she's assigned to the Bunco Squad.Here's where this picture has a problem. For all the previous films Maisie is quite the shrewd woman. But even the smartest of us need training and she would never be put in the situation she was in for this film.In fact the gang which consists of Leon Ames, Clinton Sundberg and Gloria Holden make quite a chump of her. But that's all Sothern needs, she's going to catch these people if it's the last thing she ever does. And it nearly is.Far from the best of this series.
jjnxn-1
Final entry in the Maisie series is an inconsequential affair where our gal manages to find herself in a peck of trouble when she joins the police force.As always the main reason to watch these films is the bright and bubbly Ann Sothern and as usual she's far better than the material handed her. The plot is a standard issue flimflam about phony spiritualists bilking unsuspecting dupes out of their dollars. You can see the ending coming from a mile away but the supporting cast contains several excellent actors including Leon Ames and Gloria Holden. Ann's leading men in these are usually competent but not terribly charismatic actors and Barry Nelson is no exception. He gets the job done although he and Ann share little chemistry. Not a terrible way to end Maisie's journey but hardly the best place to see her. None are award winners but the original Maisie, Swing Shift Maisie and Maisie Was a Lady are the serial's best.
gridoon2018
I noticed in the opening credits that "Undercover Maisie" was written by a woman (Thelma Robinson), which probably accounts for the strong feminist stance of the movie: even at the end, when the conventions of the genre demand that Maisie get kidnapped and imprisoned by the villains, she fights them - ultimately successfully - all by herself, putting her self-defense training to practical use. But while this aspect of the film is fun to watch, the film itself is plodding and, at a full 90 minutes, too long (this kind of programmer usually works better at around an hour). Maisie has a few (too few!) memorable lines ("My head....my hand....my knees!"), but the best line in the film, and a quite suggestive one at that, is by far the last one, belonging to Barry Nelson, which is worth sitting around for. ** out of 4.
AD
