THE BLONDE BANDIT (1949; d. Harry Keller, w. John K Butler)

Innocent (+ Toto-less) Kansan learning to live in scheming, corrupt man’s world: lured to big city by bigamist Larry GoodRich/ards (mental issue introduced into psyche by godlike, never-seen agent), giving false i.d. (becoming not-self) when framed for robbery (wmn’s Edenic bum rap); goes undercover for cops (anima doing investigative work for dominating male conscious authority: interesting dissolve from Police Chief to her to him i.d.s seemingly mingling, his enveloping hers: male assuming feminine guise in order to defuse own postwar masculine menace) + falls for "underworld" (subconscious; own masculine strength) Joe Santelli (dream alter ego to straight-arrow Chief).

Begins + ends at bus station (characters in transit/ion), 1st born/e into world trusting naïf, finally abandoning "baggage" (past) for redeemed crook – film’s mature (B-film) acknowledgment that You Can’t Go Home + men’s learning to live w/ (corrupt: Original Sin + history of war-killing, frameup the conscripting government forcing men into this position) selves.

Joe proposes in plane on auto-pilot (deepest weightless uncontrolled sleep, where masc/fem schism healed, vets’ reunion + marriage to wmnfolk back home similarly reuniting w/ lost anima), story his (the unconscious Police-Chief not-self), of redemption (ascension; vows to give up rackets) + hers, of redeeming him (become Virgin-Mary mother à la Woman’s Welfare Leaguer met in beginning) + marrying after jilting by dreamdate (learning to live in godless postwar world).

Discovery that even Joe’s mama knows her way ’round block at racetrack realization that "corrupt" (adult) world not so bad: real danger in bourgeoisie (GoodRich + jeweller who frames her for insurance $) + doublecrossing cops (vice guys on take who frame her again + set Joe up for murder [cop-consciousness's own killer-conscience]), surprisingly antiestablishment picture turning femme fatale stereotype on ear, tho exploitative title – probable capitulation to misogynist studio expectations of audience – + expected climactic slap conspire against her.

Director Keller did non-Orson scenes from Welles’s Touch of Evil.