Scott Brady

Mona Freeman

Andrea King

Tony Curtis

Charles Drake

Gregg Martell

Larry Keating

Robert Gist

Michael Raffetto

Rock Hudson

Nestor Paiva

Paul Fierro

Bess Flowers

James Best

Lane Bradford

Nana Bryant

Peggie Castle

Steve Darrell

Richard Irving

Leonard Goldstein

Otto Ludwig

Irwin Gielgud

Charles Lamont

Irving Glassberg

Russell A. Gausman

Rosemary Odell

Leslie I. Carey

Joan St. Oegger

Milton Schwarzwald

David S. Horsley

Robert Clatworthy

Dewey Starkey

Jesse Hibbs

Bernard Herzbrun

Ruby R. Levitt

Robert Pritchard

Bud Westmore

Crime

Drama

Thriller

I Was a Shoplifter

Universal International Pictures

United States of America

CinemaSerf

When the daughter of a judge is caught shoplifting, she has to sign a confession in order to go free. "Faye" (Mona Freeman) is not the only one in the shop who's been apprehended in this annual $100m scam - "Jeff" (Scott Brady) has also been arrested and he is determined to befriend his new rookie friend. She works in the library and receives a visitor summoning her to a bar where she meets up with the manipulative "Ina" (Andrea King) and now she finds herself involved in a blackmail plot to ensure she continues to lift goods to order for the gang. Luckily for all, "Jeff" isn't quite what he seems and what now ensues is a decently enough paced drama that illustrates just how easy it is to steal and just how lucrative a business it is for the perpetrators. There's a strangely miscast, and rather weedy, Tony Curtis aboard here as the rather un-menacing enforcer "Pepe" and at times it adopts a slightly documentary approach to the polling techniques used to ensnare these criminals, but there's enough chemistry between Brady and Freeman and King reminds me of a baddie from a Rathbone/Bruce "Sherlock Holmes" film. The ending is a bit rushed, but it's still worth a watch if you want to know how easy it is to sell-on a dodgy three-blade electric razor!

English