Double Deal (1950)

Richard Denning is a petroleum engineer who comes to bring in a gusher for Carleton Young. He meets Marie Windsor at a high stakes craps game going on in a bar. He finds out that James Griffith was using loaded dice to beat Young and goes to bat for him. Young asks him to work to bring in his well, but warns him that he will have to fight his sister (Fay Baker), who runs the town. Baker tells Griffith that she does not want the well to come in. She holds a grudge against her brother because he hit one of her boyfriends in a fight, and he never regained consciousness. She decides to take the feminine approach with Denning and invites him to dinner, but he will not play along. So, Baker sicks her thugs on him, who tell him to get out of town after they work him over.

Then Denning finds Young dead in his room, just before the police walk in. It is a frame, but the coroner's evidence exonerates him. He packs to leave, but Windsor talks him out of it, telling him that Young left his entire estate to her, so she owns the well and the ranch. They get the local drunk, a lawyer called "Corpus" (Taylor Holmes), to draw up a partnership agreement. Holmes tells them that Baker has to get her oil across their land. They are under a time deadline on the well, and no oil is appearing in the samples. In the meantime the money has run out and they are going into debt - but Denning does not want to quit.

Baker sends her thugs to sabotage the well. They do not stop it, but the repairs do cost money they cannot afford. Griffith and Baker quarrel after she demeans him for not doing the job successfully. Holmes suggests Denning and Windsor try to work a deal with Baker - money in exchange for pipeline easement. After Windsor has left her unsuccessful interview with Baker, someone shoots Baker. Griffith comes in just after it has happened and assumes Windsor did it. She is released, but is in fear for her life that the real killer will come after her. The killer turns out to be Holmes, who forces her at gun point to the ranch. Holmes owned all the land in years past, but it was given to others when his leases ran out. Griffith comes in with a gun, but a pet monkey diverts his attention and Holmes shoots him. Then Denning arrives to try to get Holmes dried out in order to get his legal help. Holmes hides the body and puts a rug over the blood on the floor. He tells Denning that Windsor is in town. About that time the police are figuring out that Holmes is the culprit, and the monkey climbs out the window into Denning's car with blood on him. He gets suspicious and climbs back in a window to find Griffith's body. There is a tense face-off in a dark cellar, and the police arrive just in time.

The well finally comes in - a gusher - with some pretty impressive photography at the end.




Young


Baker