Screen legend Ricardo Montalban (Fantasy Island, The Naked Gun, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn) was a Mexican and American actor who had an amazing career in film and television.  Along the way, earlier in his career before achieving stardom, he was the lead in a couple of classic film noirs. One noir that he starred in was Mystery Street. Directed by the great John Sturges (The Magnificent Seven, Bad Day at Black Rock), Mystery Street has everything you would want in a noir, gritty characters and dark streets! It’s the perfect example of what a film noir should be, and was made during the time noirs were at a high point in cinema.

Shot in both Cape Cod and Boston, Mystery Street is the story of a woman, Vivian (Jan Sterling, The High and the Mighty, 1984) who is romantically involved with a married man who refuses to leave his wife, decides to confront him at a beach in Cape Cod and have him make a decision about who he wants to be with once and for all. She gives a drunk Henry Shanway (Marshall Thompson, Fiend Without a Face, It! The Terror from Beyond Space) a ride in a car telling him she will take him to back home in Boston. When he discovers she is not driving to Boston and headed to Cape Cod, he gets on Vivian’s case, and winds up getting thrown out of the car and is left stranded. Vivian arrives in Cape Cod, only to be immediately shot and killed. Months, later after a partial skeleton is found, a local police officer, Lieutenant Peter Morales (Ricardo Montalban, Border Incident) and Harvard forensics expert Dr. McAdoo (Bruce Bennett, The New Adventures of Tarzan, Nora Prentiss) are called in to solve the case of who the skeleton is and who the murderer is before they send the wrong man, which happens to be Shanway to the electric chair.

Mystery Street is an excellent noir with great production values and has that wonderful atmospheric feel to it, which is needed to create such a film. The great camera work, the lack of music and mood all contribute to making this film a fantastic noir. Richardo Montalban is in top form as the aggressive Lieutenant Morales with Bruce Bennett and Sally Forrest (Whirlpool, The Strange Door) as the troubled, tormented wife, Mrs. Shanway in great supporting roles. But do you know who really makes this movie even better? It happens to be the iconic Elsa Lanchester, mainly known for being the bride and Mary Shelley in Bride of Frankenstein has a prominent, juicy role in this movie as a sleazy landlady. This to me was one of her finest roles. She had a marvelous career, with plenty of great classics on her resume which included The Spiral Staircase, Ladies in Retirement, The Big Clock, Witness for the Prosecution and The Razor’s Edge.

Previously released on a double-feature MOD DVDr with Act of Violence from the Warner Archive Collection, Mystery Street receives a Blu-ray release sporting a brand new, and as mentioned “HD master from 4K scans of best preservation elements”. The black and white film is on a BD-50, which seems to be the case for most if not all their Blu-rays. It’s hard to come up with new adjectives to describe just how good of a job Warner Archive has done with this film along with their other catalogue Blu-ray titles. Black levels and shadow detail for Mystery Street are in top form, with greys and whites looking sharp all throughout the film. The characters and various scenic shots of Cape Cod and Boston by cinematographer John Alton look marvelous. Interior shots show lots of detail and strong textures.  The image looks clean without any print damages detected. Film grain is present and no DNR has been applied. This was an absolute pleasure to watch!

The audio for their Blu-ray is English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono soundtrack that sounds perfectly clear without any drop-offs are hissing to be found. The film is practically all dialogue with a minimal amount of music and background noises that were car and train noises during chase scenes. The fidelity is crisp and balanced all the way through the feature with nothing being too aggressive. The dialogue easy to understand and follow.

English SDH subtitles are available.

Special features include a commentary track by Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward, which was ported over from the DVD release.

The featurette Murder at Harvard, is also from the DVD.

New to this release are a pair of classic cartoons from MGM starring Tom and Jerry:  Little Quacker and The Hollywood Bowl, with both being in HD. The two cartoons are funny (if you are into Tom and Jerry antics) and look outstanding with a clean picture and lush colors. An original theatrical trailer rounds out the extras.

All in all, Mystery Street is another Blu-ray masterpiece in the audio and video department and with a few cartoons and legacy extras included for this offering, it’s safe to say you can discard the DVDr if you own it. Highly recommended!

Mystery Street

Director – John Sturges 

Cast- Ricardo Montalban, Sally Forrest, Jan Sterling, Bruce Bennett

Country of Origin-USA

Distributor – Warner Archive/ Warner Home Video

Number of Discs –1

Reviewed by – David Steigman

Date- 5/24/2025